Chương 134: 133: Something watches

The crowd in Patagonia was a sea of confusion. Millions of people stood scattered across the slopes of the mountains, perhaps more, pulled from homes, cities, workplaces, and ordinary moments without warning. Nobody knew who had brought them there or why the air was suddenly cold, why snow covered distant peaks, or why the ground beneath their feet was no longer the ground they had been standing on moments before.

A woman in a bakery apron clutched her daughter's hand while a man in a business suit stared at the mountains with a pencil still tucked behind his ear. Nearby, a child who had been in the middle of a mathematics test searched frantically for his mother. Voices rose throughout the crowd.

"Where are we?!"

"What happened?!"

"Where's my wife?"

"Everyone stay together!"

"Does anybody know what's going on?"

"Why are there so many people?"

"I was in my house! I was literally in my house!"

"Nobody knows anything!" Strange-looking meerkats wandered among them, equally bewildered by the sudden appearance of hundreds of thousands of humans, before eventually scurrying away into the surrounding wilderness. Nobody paid them much attention. There were far more pressing concerns. Thornburgh saw her. He stopped so abruptly that Elara nearly walked into him, but he barely noticed. For several seconds, he simply stared across the crowd at the little girl standing among the mountains. Kiri. His daughter.

The child he had believed dead for seven years was standing thirty metres away. Alive. Something inside Thornburgh's chest suddenly felt impossibly light, almost painfully so. For seven years, he had carried the weight of her death, seven years of remembering the day he had watched the Commander snap her neck, seven years of seeing that moment whenever he closed his eyes. He had watched her body go limp. He had watched the Commander walk away. He had believed that was the end. Now she was standing in front of him.

Thornburgh's lips slowly curved into a ghost of a smile. He did not ask how she had survived. He did not ask why she was there or demand an explanation for the impossible sight before him. For once, none of those questions mattered. He only stared at his daughter.

"Kiri?" The girl turned. She had appeared among the mountains only moments earlier, with absolutely no understanding of how she had arrived. Her eyes moved methodically across the unfamiliar landscape, the enormous crowd surrounding her, the snow-covered peaks, the strange animals wandering between people, and the hundreds of unfamiliar faces staring back at her.

Her expression remained remarkably composed for a child, although confusion flickered briefly across her features as she seemed to catalogue everything around her in search of an explanation. Her gaze found Thornburgh. She froze.

"Father?" Thornburgh crossed the distance before he consciously realized he was moving. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her against his chest, and for a moment he could do nothing except hold her. He did not remember reaching her. He only knew that his daughter was alive and that she was standing in his arms. Kiri's hands slowly curled against his bare chest. Thornburgh closed his eyes. His smile remained faint. His chest felt lighter than it had in seven years. Behind him, Elara stood completely frozen.

Maya's hands flew to her mouth while Liam stared at Kiri as though reality itself had just broken in front of him. Elara was the first to move. She rushed forward and dropped beside them, her trembling hands immediately taking Kiri's face between her palms.

"Kiri…" Her voice broke.

"Oh, my little girl." Kiri stared at her. The woman's face was unfamiliar, yet something buried beneath the missing pieces of her memory recognized her.

"Are you my mother?" Elara broke completely. She pulled Kiri into her arms.

"Yes," she whispered, her voice shaking violently.

"Yes, I'm your mother." Kiri remained stiff for a moment before slowly returning the embrace. Maya wiped tears from her cheeks.

"You're really here." Liam stepped closer, his voice trembling as he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing.

"I don't understand. How are you alive?" Kiri looked at him. Liam swallowed.

"We saw it happen. The Commander snapped your neck. We were there, Kiri. We saw your body fall. We saw you die." Maya nodded through her tears.

"You were dead." Elara pulled back just enough to look at Kiri's face.

"How did you survive that?" Kiri tilted her head slightly.

"I was resurrected." Silence settled around them. Liam blinked.

"You were what?"

"Resurrected."

"By who?" Kiri's expression remained remarkably calm.

"The Commander." The entire family went silent. Thornburgh's smile did not disappear. He simply continued looking at his daughter. Liam's face twisted with disbelief.

"The same Commander?"

"Affirmative."

"The man who killed you?"

"Affirmative." Maya shook her head.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"I agree." Kiri delivered the statement with such clinical certainty that Liam actually stopped. She continued, "He resurrected me, repaired my body, and subsequently trained me." Elara stared at her.

"He trained you?"

"Yes."

"To do what?" Kiri paused briefly, apparently organizing the answer.

"Combat, survival, observation, tactical analysis, physical conditioning, weapon usage, psychological resistance, and situational awareness." Liam's mouth fell open.

"You're eleven."

"I am aware."

"That is not normal."

"I am also aware of that." Maya let out a shaky laugh despite herself.

"You sound so strange." Kiri looked at her.

"Strange?"

"Your voice. The way you talk." Kiri considered the statement.

"Has my speech pattern changed?"

"Yes," Elara whispered.

"You sound like an adult." Kiri's eyes moved toward her mother.

"I was required to communicate efficiently." Liam frowned.

"Required by who?"

"The Commander."

"And you just listened to him?" Kiri looked at him.

"He resurrected me." Liam fell silent. Kiri continued with the same calm precision.

"That tends to create a certain degree of gratitude." Maya stared at her.

"That is an incredibly weird thing for you to say."

"I have been informed that my conversational habits are unusual." Liam gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

"Who informed you?"

"Several people."

"Who?"

"I do not remember all of their names." Liam rubbed his face.

"Oh, God." Kiri looked around again as the enormous crowd became increasingly agitated. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Where are we?"

"Patagonia," Thornburgh answered. Kiri looked toward the mountains.

"Patagonia."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"We don't know."

"Who brought us here?"

"We don't know that either." Kiri studied the crowd. People were crying, arguing, embracing relatives, and desperately searching for family members.

"What is the approximate population of this gathering?"

"Hundreds of thousands," Maya answered. Kiri nodded slowly. Maya stepped closer.

"You remember us?"

"Not entirely." Elara's expression faltered.

"What do you mean?" Kiri looked at her.

"I remember fragments." Her voice softened slightly.

"You. Dad. Liam. Maya. Our house. Certain meals. Certain conversations." She paused.

"The memories are incomplete." Elara's eyes filled again.

"Oh, Kiri." She reached for her daughter, and Kiri allowed herself to be pulled into another embrace. Maya crouched beside them.

"You really remember me?"

"Affirmative."

"What do you remember?" Kiri studied her for several seconds.

"You used to steal food from my plate." Maya laughed through her tears.

"You remember that?"

"Affirmative."

"You always complained."

"You stole my food."

"You're still blaming me?"

"It was objectively your fault." Liam laughed.

"That sounds more like her." Kiri looked toward him.

"You also broke my blue bicycle." Liam's smile vanished.

"I was seven."

"You were ten."

"Okay, fine." Thornburgh finally laughed softly. Kiri looked up at him.

"You are smiling."

"I am."

"Why?" Thornburgh looked down at his daughter.

"Because you're alive." Kiri stared at him for several seconds. Something in her expression softened.

"I am." Thornburgh's ghost of a smile returned. He still asked no questions. He did not ask what the Commander had done to her, what she had endured, or what she had become. Those questions could wait. For now, his daughter was standing in front of him, and that was enough. He rested a hand gently upon her head. Kiri looked around once more at the strange mountains, the frightened people, and the family she had somehow found again. The unfamiliar world seemed slightly less unfamiliar now.

She looked back at Thornburgh.

"Father."

"Yes?"

"May I remain with you?" Thornburgh's smile finally broke through.

"You never have to ask that." Kiri nodded.

"Understood." Liam looked at her.

"You know, you really do talk weird now." Kiri blinked.

"I have noticed." Maya smiled.

"You'll get used to us again." Kiri looked at her family for a long moment.

"I believe I would like that." Elara pulled her close again while Thornburgh watched them, his chest feeling lighter than it had in seven years. For once, he did not need answers. His daughter was standing in front of him. That was enough. She suddenly stepped back, her fingers finding the clasp at her throat. The hummingbird necklace pulsed once, twice, and unfolded with a soft mechanical hum. Light spilled across her body.

The suit bloomed around her as though something had awakened from a very long sleep, its armor forming over her limbs while wings unfolded from her shoulders in sweeping arcs of light. The scales shifted from soft amber to bright gold, then to a searing, impossible orange that made Elara gasp. Weapons locked into place along her thighs, arms, and back, each one humming with a frequency that made Liam's teeth ache.

A folded helmet rested against her back like the head of some mechanical bird, while the wings continued to shimmer behind her. A man nearby pointed at her.

"Is that a cosplay?" His friend stared at the suit.

"If it is, that is the coolest cosplay I've ever seen."

"I'm pretty sure those guns are real."

"Those are absolutely not real." One of the guns gave a quiet mechanical click as its targeting system activated. The man took a step backward.

"Okay. Maybe they're real." More people began noticing Kiri. Conversations spread through the crowd as phones were raised, though many displayed no signal.

"I've got nothing."

"Try again."

"I am trying!"

"Does anyone have service?"

"I'm moving higher up the mountain!" Several people were already walking away from the main gathering, holding their phones above their heads and desperately searching for a signal. Others stared toward the sky, pointing at distant clouds and the strange marks still lingering above the mountains.

"There was an explosion."

"What explosion?"

"I don't know. I heard something before we appeared here."

"An explosion where?"

"Up there!"

"I don't remember an explosion."

"Something happened. Something definitely happened." A woman looked toward the strange meerkats that had wandered through the crowd earlier.

"Maybe those animals saved us." Her husband stared at her.

"The meerkats?"

"They showed up right before everything happened."

"They're meerkats."

"I know what they are."

"They didn't save hundreds of thousands of people."

"You don't know that." Another person overheard them.

"Honestly, at this point, I'm willing to believe anything." The crowd continued buzzing around them, but Thornburgh barely noticed. His grin had not wavered. If anything, it had grown wider. His daughter. His hummingbird. She had been taken from him, believed dead, brought back, and forged into something that could fly.

She was wearing a weapon that looked capable of leveling a city, and she was bouncing lightly on her heels with the unmistakable excitement of a child waiting for someone to tell her she looked cool. Liam was the first of the family to recover.

"That's..." He stopped, stared at her again, and started over.

"That's insane. Kiri, you have guns. On your legs. You have..." He pointed helplessly at the wings, the armor, and the folded helmet.

"You have a mech suit. How do you have a mech suit? Where did you get that? How did you even—" Kiri grinned.

"I'm an enforcer." The words came out with unmistakable pride, as though she had been waiting seven years for someone to ask.

"I protect the Commander from the things that want to hurt him. From the things that..." Her smile faltered for the briefest moment.

"From the things that already did." Elara's expression changed. She stepped closer and placed both hands against Kiri's face, her fingers tracing the curve of her cheek and jaw as though she still needed physical proof that the child standing before her was real.

"You're eleven years old." Her voice cracked.

"You're eleven years old, and you're wearing a weapon. You're carrying guns. You can fly, and you're..." She swallowed hard.

"What happened to my little girl?" Kiri's hand found hers. Her fingers were small, but her grip was fierce.

"I'm okay." Elara's eyes filled again.

"I'm okay, Mom. I was trained. I was protected. I was never alone." Thornburgh slipped an arm around his wife, his other hand settling gently upon her shoulder.

"She's like me," he said, watching Kiri with quiet pride.

"She's fast. She's strong. She's..." He paused, his voice becoming heavier as he looked at the weapons covering his daughter's body.

"She's not going to be safe. Not ever. The world isn't safe. It never has been." His gaze softened.

"But she's not going to be the one who gets hurt. She's going to be the one who hurts anything that tries to hurt her." Elara shook her head, tears slipping down her cheeks.

"I don't want her to be the one who hurts." Kiri immediately wrapped her arms around her mother.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to me," she said, her voice muffled against Elara's chest.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to any of you. I'm going to protect you." Maya and Liam exchanged a glance. Only now did they seem to notice what surrounded them. The people. All those people. Everyone was alive. Everyone had been brought here. Maya slowly turned, looking across the enormous crowd stretching over the mountain slopes.

"Wait." Liam followed her gaze.

"How did you do this?" Kiri looked at him.

"Do what?"

"Save everyone." Kiri blinked.

"I did not." Liam stared at her.

"You didn't?"

"No." Maya looked toward Thornburgh.

"Dad?" Thornburgh glanced across the mountains, his expression becoming thoughtful for the first time.

"It wasn't easy" Liam turned slowly, taking in the hundreds of thousands of people who had been scattered across the slopes, all alive, all confused, all searching for their families.

"You brought every single person here?" Nobody answered. A distant voice called from somewhere in the crowd.

"Does anyone know what happened?" Another shouted back.

"There was an explosion!" A third voice answered.

"I don't remember one!" The family exchanged uncertain looks. Kiri watched the crowd for several seconds before looking back at Thornburgh.

"Father?"

"Yes?"

"Are all these people safe?" Thornburgh looked across the mountains.

"For the moment." Kiri nodded.

"That is satisfactory." Liam stared at her.

"You're really okay with all of this?" Kiri looked at the enormous crowd.

"I have experienced considerably less orderly environments." Maya laughed despite herself.

"That is such a weird answer." Kiri's expression remained perfectly serious.

"I am beginning to suspect that you have mentioned this previously."

"You're definitely still Kiri," Liam said. A small smile appeared on her face. Thornburgh looked at his daughter, his wife, his other children, and the vast crowd surrounding them. He still had interest in giving an explanation for how any of them had arrived, who had saved them, or what had happened in the sky above Patagonia. Those questions could wait. His daughter was alive. His family was together. And somehow, impossibly, hundreds of thousands of other people were alive beside them. Kiri's suit hummed.

Her wings spread slightly. Her guns caught the sunlight. Thornburgh smiled. Kiri looked at him.

"Race you." Liam immediately whooped. Maya burst into laughter. Elara covered her face as she cried and laughed at the same time. Thornburgh's grin widened.

"Not if I get there first." Kiri's eyes brightened.

"That sounds like a challenge."

"It is." The wings opened fully. A collective gasp swept through the surrounding crowd. Someone shouted, "That is definitely not cosplay!" Kiri laughed. For the first time in seven years, Thornburgh heard his daughter laugh again. — The crowd was still there. The people Butter had saved were still scattered across the mountains, looking toward the sky, the surrounding peaks, and one another with the same bewildered expressions. Nobody knew what to do or where to go.

The world was ending on the other side of the planet, while they had been deposited here in the cold, surrounded by mountains and open wilderness with no cities, homes, or familiar lives anywhere in sight.

"What will we do with them?" Butter's voice was quiet as she stood at the edge of the crowd, her hands hanging loosely at her sides while she stared toward the distant sky. She had saved as many people as her Gloom had allowed. Sway had taken Custard into space, Swarm had been released back into the Aria, and what remained of Butter's Gloom was little more than a fading ember.

She was exhausted, her body aching beneath the weight of everything that had happened, and yet she could not bring herself to rest while millions of people stood around her waiting for an answer.

"There's nothing that can—""Ghost-girl!" Butter turned. A boy was pushing through the crowd, his legs thin beneath a blue hospital gown and his bald head gleaming beneath the pale morning light. He looked perhaps fourteen, perhaps younger, though the illness had made it difficult to tell. An IV stand rattled behind him as he dragged it through the uneven ground, the translucent bag swinging from its hook while the tube snaked downward toward the port in his chest. He was grinning.

There was something almost startling about that smile. It belonged to a boy who had been told countless times that he was dying, yet his eyes carried none of the resignation Butter had expected. They were bright with recognition, excitement, and something dangerously close to joy.

"I knew it was you!" His voice came out far louder than his frail body seemed capable of producing. His lungs had been fighting their own war for years, yet he sounded as though he had finally been given permission to breathe.

"I saw you! On the internet! The fights! The thing with the monster, and the..." He stopped only long enough to catch his breath before continuing.

"You're my favourite. Out of all of them, you're the one I was hoping would come. You're the goddess of martial arts!" Butter could only blink. Her body moved before her mind caught up with it. She crossed the distance, dropped to her knees in the snow, and gently placed both hands upon his shoulders.

"Oh my. Are you okay?" Her voice had fallen to a whisper.

"Are you hurt?" The boy shook his head, his grin refusing to disappear.

"I'm better now. The doctors said the treatment worked. They said I'm going to live." Butter's expression changed.

"You're going to live?"

"Yeah." He looked almost embarrassed by how happy he was.

"I always wanted to meet you. I watched all your fights. I had the nurses print out pictures of you and put them on my wall. My mum said I was obsessed and that you probably weren't even real." He laughed softly, the sound thin but genuine.

"I knew you were real." His eyes moved over her face.

"You're prettier in person." Butter let out a small, broken laugh. The sound carried more emotion than she seemed capable of putting into words. She pulled him into her arms. He was frighteningly light. His IV stand clattered against her leg as she held him, the tube pulling taut for a moment before she carefully adjusted her position. She barely noticed the cold beneath her knees anymore.

All she could feel was the warmth of the boy in her arms, the fragile heartbeat beneath the hospital gown, and the astonishing reality that he was alive.

"I'm glad you're okay," she whispered. Her face pressed gently against his smooth head.

"I'm so glad you're okay." The boy hugged her back with surprising strength.

"Ghost-girl." Butter smiled faintly.

"Hmm?"

"That's what they called you." He pulled back enough to look at her.

"Because you always came back, right? Even when they thought you were dead. Even when everyone thought you were finished, you always came back." His eyes glistened.

"I used to watch you when I was scared. Whenever they told me something was going wrong, I'd watch your fights. You never stayed down." Butter stared at him. Something inside her chest tightened. For years, she had fought because there was always something else to protect, someone else to save, another monster standing between her and the people she loved. She had never stopped long enough to wonder what any of it meant to the people watching from the other side of the screen. This boy had watched.

He had remembered. He had believed in her while lying beneath fluorescent hospital lights, waiting for doctors to tell him whether he would see another morning. And somehow, he had survived long enough to meet her. Butter brushed her thumb gently beneath one of his eyes.

"You were very brave."

"So were you." She laughed softly.

"I don't always feel brave."

"I know." He smiled.

"That's why I liked watching you." Butter tilted her head.

"Why?"

"Because you looked scared sometimes." She stared at him. He shrugged.

"But you kept going anyway." Her arms tightened around him.

"Thank you," she whispered. The boy rested his head against her shoulder.

"I knew you'd come." Butter closed her eyes. The enormous weight pressing against her seemed to loosen. She had been thinking about numbers, shelter, food, medicine, transportation, and the impossible question of what she was supposed to do with millions of displaced people while the rest of the world descended into chaos. She had forgotten the simplest answer. They were alive. That had to mean something. A sharp, resonant note suddenly cut through the mountains. Butter's head lifted.

The sound seemed to come from everywhere at once, ringing through the crowd and vibrating against the cold air. She looked upward. Shock froze her in place. Sylvia floated high above them.