So, I've had this idea floating in my head for some time now. I've been nervous about letting it out because it may go horribly wrong. One of the worlds I set my fiction in is high magic in the modern world, and I've been asked how trans people fit into that world several times in chats and casual conversation. My response has always been, "perfectly, because that's how they should fit any world". But it certainly ignores the basic mechanics of it.

How would magical transition look? What would it entail? What's the history of it, and how does that history influence the broader world building. To me, building a magical world where trans people didn't exist wasn't realistic. Building one where they were limited to real world processes was too realistic. What's the balance? Where's the line? And can I, a cis-hetero male writer, speak to the subject in a respectful and caring way?

That last one is the hard part. I never, ever want to write something that hurts. I know that's a risk with this kind of subject matter, and I so deeply hope I didn't fuck this up. If I did, I ask forgiveness and room to improve myself.

---

The Appointment

"Please, do come in Ms Dixon."

I could see she was nervous. So many of my clients are. It's a scary thing, transformation. The early days, when magic first came back with a bang, mistakes were made. The fluctuations in the magical field didn't help, but the lack of deep knowledge of how to use it was the real problem. Everything was either an experiment, or trying to replicate ancient texts. There were no direct rituals or spells for radical transformation of the body permanently.

That kind of power was for the gods, not we mortals. Sure, if you wanted to run as a wolf for a night, or maybe a bear, chances were good you could find something to build on, if not something directly for that. And surface level alterations were easy enough. It was deep change that was elusive and dangerous. It turned out that shifting cells that are actively replicating and repairing themselves, well, magically interfering with that process was bad if you weren't an expert. No experts existed.

Lucky for he field of Healing, some examples of the wider world of magic brought us help. The vampires and were-creatures, the various fey entities that could fluidly move between states gave us something to study. By the time the god wars kicked off, Healing as a field of magic was coming along. Unfortunately, a world spanning devastation at apocalyptic scale kind of inhibited development of specialities that weren't trauma and surgical in nature.

But there were early attempts. The need was high enough for people stuck in the wrong bodies that they would often chase any rumor, take any risk to find relief, to inhabit a body that fit.

Hence the visit from Ms Dixon. She had been one of the earlier brave souls willing to work with Transformative Healing researchers. It was all done rigorously, but outside of oversight or supervision by any governing agency. There weren't governing agencies. Boundaries were pushed. Too far, too fast, too often. Some of those brave souls died as a result of experiments. The less fortunate ones wished they had, with some taking their own lives before knowledge reached the point to be able to help them. Because what changes happened were often unbearable.

Ms Dixon, she was a success in many ways. From the outside, fully clothed, no one would know she had not started life in a body like that. But there was much pain as the cells of her organs fought each other. There was pain with her digestive and excretory function, as much of that work was primitive and poorly executed by modern standards. In all truth, conventional, non magical medicine was far better at that time. At least there, results were predictable. Surgery never made anyone grow gills and suffocate before they could be moved to water.

But it had taken over fourty years before magical capability reached the point of being able to put right what went wrong for her. She had to watch as others, starting after the experiments and mistakes, benefited from her pain in being able to make the transition younger, with little or no complications. But we finally did it. We finally got there, and I'm one of three healers in the world that can do it all.

Her face, the tension in her shoulders, I was taking too long thinking.

"Ms Dixon, I can help. I can finish the job you started in the eighties, and do it right."

"That's... That's not what I expected to hear."

"I'm sorry for that. You should have had this available long ago. If it weren't for you, a lot of it wouldn't be possible. The procedures you volunteered for, the examinations and scans you've allowed got a lot of people here before you. I'm grateful to be the one that gets to return the fruit of that to you."

"I didn't start out doing it for anyone. I just couldn't not try. And when new things came out, I had to keep trying, until nobody could do more because of the things already done. That's when it started being less about me."

"In any case, ma'am, my entire sub-speciality was built on your shoulders as much as any practitioner you worked with."

"You really can do something for me?"

"Not just something, a full transition. Organ rebuilds, cellular repair, gene editing; all of it. The last scan we did? That was partially me comparing your current genetic fluctuations with the cell cultures you gave us that I had been working with. I'm going to be able to stabilize it, and stabilize the XY in particular. No more rejection meds, no more stasis spells. Once we're finished, you'll be as fully transformed as any of my younger clients that started from scratch."

"How long?"

"That's the less exciting part. A year, maybe two. We have to start with the hard parts and let it propagate before we can grow new organs. Gene editing via magic is a slow process any time. We have to be twice as slow with you because of the primitive mistakes made that keep you in flux. It was the best they could do then, but it's very resistant to repair and stabilization. That will take half of the first year for sure. Longer if your spirit struggles to resist the shift. It shouldn't, it's a very rare thing for someone of a misplaced spirit to resist, but it does happen since our spirit is so woven into our flesh. Habits can build up."

"Oh. I thought it might be longer. A year? Two. Oh.

Will it hurt much?"

"Some, yes. Not the initial part, the gene editing I do feels warm and tingly. Perhaps as potent as a TENS unit at low settings. It's diffuse. It's the organ growth that hurts. You can't make a uterus grow without it displacing other things, and you'll experience the entirety of that growth rapidly. A month, perhaps two. From the seed cells to a pubescent organ in that time frame, alongside the ovarian transformation so we get the timing right, you do the puberty speed run much, much faster than someone transitioning over the span of a normal puberty would. That happens over years instead, so it's not much different from the pains of puberty alone.

You, however, can expect severe cramps, aching and throbbing. I can adjust some things, and we have meds to dull it, but we can't eliminate the pain entirely. The vaginal restructuring will be roughly as painful.

The breast tissue will be easy though. While we have to excise what's there as well as the implants and get rid of scarring, the pain is minimal. Akin to tender breasts during menstruation or pregnancy."

"Puberty. Real puberty."

"Accelerated by necessity, but yes. As real as it gets."

"It's a shame though. That it came so late."

"Very much so. We, we Healers, should have made this a higher priority. But it's such a complex sub-specialty and takes a certain mandatory range of ability as well as capacity."

"I meant that it's too late to use it all. The uterus. Why is your work so limited? Why did it take this long?"

"Too late? By no means, Ms Dixon. Yes, any pregnancy would be high risk, if that's what you mean?" She nodded. "Your body is in its late sixties, true. And that comes with difficulties regarding pregnancy. But your reproductive system, the ovaries, uterus, vagina, everything is going to be essentially brand new. When it's all finished, your reproductive organs will be the equivalent of a late teens or early twenties woman, for a while."

"How long is a while?"

"There, I can't be specific. It's too new of a process. But equivalent work done with recovery after the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and uterus were gone for some reason; has given women as much as a decade of function even when the regrowth happened at your age. I suspect that the gene editing will have some effect on that. It may be less, it may even be more. We can't rejuvenate, not yet, but your cells will have a bit of extra oomph for few years, for lack of a better description.

But you would want to wait a year or two after everything is finished before attempting pregnancy. The work I'll be doing is safe, but there's never a zero risk situation, and we are altering genes. They need to be fully stable before trying to make a baby. Only way to be sure they are is time."

"Oh. I can't see myself trying to parent in my seventies."

"That's up to you. But if you decide otherwise, please do let me know so we can take every precaution."

"You didn't answer me about why it took so long. Why now?"

"Well, the specialty got a late start for one, which you already knew. But it's hard Ms Dixon. Standard Transformative Healing is hard enough. Replacing limbs, growing them when they weren't there to begin with, even cosmetics, it takes a lot of energy. Just a facelift can take a tenth of your wellsource, if you have a deep one to begin with. Some healing, all you're doing is a trickle to push the person's body into healing itself. Something like trauma healing can take it out of you because there's so much to do, but each individual step is low energy.

But gene editing? Generating stem cells and programming them? It's all on the caster. Even cosmetics, most of it comes from the caster because you're changing the body away from its pattern, so the spirit isn't going to help much at all, and there's only so much it can do, unless the person has training too.

Your case is even harder. You've already been transformed, multiple times, and some of that was with magic that wasn't right for the job. The early attempts to change testicles into ovaries were just wrong. Which means that I'm, that any healer, is going to be fighting another magician's work as well as the normal resistat of cells and genes.

That, ma'am, is why it took so long. For any of us to develop that kind of skill meant baby steps, usually transferred from some other discipline, and only able to be developed by the absolute most powerful of us. Right now, there's three people including me that have the strength to do each stage of the work in one go. The first gene edits, and controlling how they spread, will fully drain me. It'll take a few days to recover, and that's a big thing in itself. Most stuff, you refill once you sleep properly. This, if it went wrong, could burn a practitioner out permanently."

Her face blanched, and she started to rise.

"No, no it won't happen, but that's why only the absolute strongest can do it, and why the chain of research took decades. We could only do the research when we weren't treating patients, and that only after schooling and apprenticeship. Most of the best work was from people that could only do maybe one or two days of work on it a year.

My wellsource is why I was first recruited by Master Halligan. He couldn't quite finish his final experiments because he lacked the capacity to make it happen. That I had a personal stake in it was a happy accident."

"A personal stake?"

"My mom was Cheryl Kitteridge."

"Oh. Oh wow! You're the first baby!"

"That's me. The first baby born to a magically transitioned woman. You are her hero, Ms Dixon. Mine too. I wouldn't be here if you hadn't taken the risks you took. I grew up with that picture of you on the cover of People framed in our living room."

So, this one was hard. Really, really hard. I'm not absolutely certain I got it right, but this is how it got birthed, and it's what needs to happen. It's clunky in a few places, I know. Maybe in the future, when the whole thing is complete, I can wrestle it into better shape, I dunno. Anyway, here goes.

---

"You ready?"

"I am. Are you not going to gloat?"

"Generator, unlike you, I don't take particular joy in kicking someone that's writhing in agony. Besides, nothing I can say is going to sting as much as the fact that you lost. Speaking of that, maybe in the future, if this doesn't stick, remember that you aren't the judge of people you think you are."

"Before we do this, how was I wrong?"

"You didn't know me. You didn't care about me. So you didn't know shit about how I got where I am. You keep trying to grind at me by calling me doctor, but I was a fucking nurse. Nurses spend more time with patients, hands on. My power is called empathic healing, and despite that not being the limits of what I can do, it's how it first manifested. I fucking cared, Generator. I gave care because I couldn't see the pain people are in and not try to help.

My power kicked in on the oncology unit. Like most people, like you, it didn't kick off fully fledged. I worked for two years with my power slowly pulling the pain of my patients into me. Then the diseases themselves, or at least the version of them it transfers.

It was another year before I figured out what was going on, and that was when I started medicating. Six days? Six days ain't shit, lady. You remember Nuke? How I offloaded into him, I had been carrying that mess for months, and only kept the bare minimum cocktail in me because I was hunting someone almost as bad in their way as you fuckknuckles in Ragnarok. I ride the pain and addiction every day."

"Are you going to keep on with the whining, or get started?"

"Fuck you."

"In your dreams, junkie."

"Shut the fuck up, and sit down. How the mental shit works is different from the physical. The body, I just pull it into me, almost zero effort. But psychological injury isn't so clear cut. It's brain patterns, memories, chemical pathways. When powers are involved, it's even trickier if the powers need to be unchanged. I've already probed you when we first met, and again while we've been chatting. I've seen worse, but your brain is like a skein of yarn after a methed up kitten had a go at it.

You ever meditate?"

"I have, yes. The Program included that, as well as other less abusive efforts."

"If you can still do it, keep your conscious mind dialed down a little, it makes sorting through the knots easier since they aren't being pulled on as much. There's going to be some degree of transfer beyond the trauma and disordered patterns. Sometimes, it's an ugly thing. Sometimes it's more gentle. The less you fight, the more likely it is it'll be gentler than it could be. Sometimes, it gets telepathic, and empathic in a more literal sense. Our minds may connect, we may feel each other's emotions as our own. I'm used to that, and it still sucks. Never had it be as bad as it was with Eternus, but the last time I tried to unkink a power trauma complex, it was rough.

This is your last chance to wimp out. I won't do this without consent, no matter what our bet was, no matter what else you've promised anyone. We don't start until you say go. But once it starts, stopping is dangerous. For both of us, but I'm more likely to survive with my mind intact. That's why we're here in the Vault, and everyone is standing ready. Nothing from the outside to fuck this up."

"Do you run your mouth this much with everyone?"

"No. I usually insist on a much longer set of preparation instructions."

"Let's just get this done."

---

Sunny day. Two adults, a teenager. I'm sitting on a lawn chair. No, she's sitting on a lawn chair. Don't lose yourself idiot, ride the wave, surf it, stay loose and ready.

Okay, she's feeling strange. Damn. She's feeling something similar to the way I first felt when my power kicked in. A hyper awareness of other people, a kind of hum coming off of them. When she pays attention to it, that hum gets more intense. Her's is more auditory than mine, interesting. There we go, the flash of awareness, the connection. She's pushing a little, trying to change the hum. The woman passed out! I guess that's their mom? Shit! She's out too. Double whammy, the feedback and strain of pushing did something.

Focus, Kerry, focus. Feel for it, feel for that first change. Ah, damn; fuck me. It's snarled deep. This is gonna take hours.

"Elaine? Generator? You with me here?"

"Yes. I am not a fan of this, doctor."

"I'm not either. Look, I need info. You passed out when your power first got used. Plenty of people do. But what did it feel like right before you went under?"

"Like someone pulled a plug inside me and all the water was spinning out."

"After that, when you woke up again, you had a weird thing with your mom, didn't you? Weird as in some kind of changed perception."

"She was always watching me, always jumping when I'd move. It turned into us not being able to be in the same room. Then the same house."

"Yeah, well, that's because when you passed out, part of your power stayed focused on her. Let me guess again, you both had a spike in nightmares. Of each other, most likely."

"Yes."

"Shit. That's part of why your power changed you so much. You were locked into a cycle of amplifying her, with a feedback that amplified you. Both of your emotions, the chemistry, the neurotransmitters and brain patterns; both of you scared, then angry, then horrified. I'm surprised neither of you broke worse."

"This is necessary? I would much prefer not walking down memory lane with you, much less reliving their betrayal."

"I don't know if it's necessary. Most of the mental shit is from the patient, not me. I have to sort through what you give me, find where things aren't working right. If those things are tied directly to a memory, I'll get some kind of experience of it. Let me work for a bit, try and get a handle on this knot."

It sure is a bad knot too. It's not the only one, but it's the biggest and most painful. Gotta tease it out careful. Easy, easy there, pull it in. Damn. Glad my mom is dead, I'd hate for this to connect to her in my head. Damn, that's some serious hate and love. Okay, okay, don't linger on it, too easy to get sucked into replaying it. Box it up, put it in the corner until the job is done.

Follow the threads. Waking up. Cold, hard surface. Bright lights. Hushed voices. Feel drugged? Not in a good way. Shit, she's tied down. Straps. At least they're padded. Fear, ramping up to terror. The sense of betrayal. Damn, no wonder this lady has a hate on for everything. Who's this jagoff? Dr. Moran? Shit, I know that name.

"Well hello, Elaine, I'm so glad you could join us here. We are going to help you master your power. We are going to help you be a better you and serve humanity."

Jesus fucking christ! She's picking up more than I thought she would. The briefing Max gave me didn't cover this part of her power, and Don sure as hell didn't know. This guy is fucked in the head worse than her by a mile. About as bad as I've ever run across, and throbbing in my head as bad or worse than Nuke did. Shit, that's me filtering her power. Was she feeling it more or less intense?

"More. His, for lack of a better phrase, brand of crazy was a power of its own. He leeched off of us. Our pain, and our use of power, fed him. Charged him up. He was a sadist before his power, I'm certain of that. Feeding off of his victims gave him the ability to manipulate others. It's how he took over the Program. It's how he kept himself insulated despite the deaths, and the reports of his abuse.

It's why we killed him slow.

That day, I knew his power. I don't feel that throb you speak of, but I do sense how a person controls their power, how it works in their body or mind. Him? I could feel the stink of how he could twist emotions and feed from them, the lust for the rush of it, and how he could use that feeding to bend people to his wishes. You feel a painful throb, I felt currents and flashes."

"Wait, what does my power feel like? No, scratch that, we're on the clock, but we need to talk after this, assuming we both survive. I have an idea I think Don and Max are going to love.

For now, just be careful. We're wrapped up in this. Don't start fucking with my power while we're synced up. I have no idea what the fuck would happen."

"You're the doctor. A foolish one, dangling a temptation like that, but I will comply."

"Thanks Elaine. Shit. Generator. Sorry."

Back at it, Kerry, don't let shit slip. Stay with the memory, the creepy fuck dialing up her fear and paranoia

"It isn't paranoia if they're really..."

"Yeah, I get it. Just because you're picking up my thoughts doesn't mean you need to respond to them. It's distracting. Let me fucking work, yeah?"

"Fine."

Fucking hell. Dammit, follow the paranoia, the twist of anger he's siphoning. That's where the knot is. Pull it gently, no rough moves. Tease it out and make it a gift after what that rat fucker did. Shit. "Sorry generator, I know what I'm doing has to feel similar. If I'd known, I would have... I don't know, I just don't want this to be like that."

Oh. She's letting me fucking work.

Smooth it out, lift just the rut the bastard wore into her. She'd have fucking recovered from the shit with her mom if she'd just gotten away for a year or two. Less with conventional therapy. Damn. This one asshole caused all the deaths she had a hand in.

Trace it to the next cluster.

---

Oh shit. Nuke. He's got power cuffs on. He's running towards her. Shit! What the fuck? He's going to knock her senseless!

Not her! Some kid. Behind her. Holy fuck, is that baby Devastation? It is. What the fuck is going on? She doesn't know either.

"Hey. Dipstick. Didn't I tell you not to fuck with new kids? I gotta beat your ass again?"

"Fuck you, man. One of these days, ima fuck you up."

"In your dreams. You hit me, it just builds up. Cuffs won't let me blow, so it just builds and builds, and makes me harder to hurt. Nothing you got scares me, Devon. If you'd chill out, you'd save yourself some bruises.

Hey, new kid. You alright? You look pretty messed up."

"Doctor. I want you to pay attention. Feel what I felt. Like with Moran."

"Okay, yeah, I can do that."

Let's see what she's on about. Damn! Devastation it is, I can feel the crackle of his power, no mistaking that. Nuke, he's... that's fucking weird. "What the hell is that?"

"That is Nuke when I met him, killer. You feel that control? You feel the fact that he could blow those cuffs off? He's got weeks of abuse piled on him at that moment. And he's still sticking up for me, all while playing by the rules. Still think he was born broken?"

"I can't feel him the same as Moran, Nuke isn't as mental in his power, he doesn't play with emotions, so what you're picking up doesn't translate the same. I'm just feeling a steady hum from him, it's translating as health, but like an athlete working hard. He feels like a marathon runner on a treadmill. Your power is picking up him controlling his, if I'm guessing right, and that he's not struggling to do it."

"Exactly. No surges, no flares. He's relaxed, but putting effort in. Wait until you see more of him, pay attention to what changes, killer."

"I'd rather you went back to accusing me of being a doctor."

"I'm sure you would. Now, I'll just hurry off and let you 'fucking work'."

Smartass. But she's made her fucking point sharp as it can get. Nuke felt totally different when I dumped into him. Even drugged out, there was a sensation of jaggedness to him, under the throb. Did I kill the wrong guy? No! Didn't have a choice. It was Nuke or someone on the team that wasn't a known and convicted murderer. And I couldn't have held it much longer. The shit from Don was leaking, like nothing else ever had. Wasn't sure it wouldn't take root for real. And if it hadn't, I still couldn't have gone anywhere to find other targets. Hell, compared to most of the shit stains I dumped into that died, he was Hitler to their schoolgirl.

Fuck! Pull it together, Kerry. Follow the memory, find the next snarl.

---

Shitfuckdamn! What did they do? She's bleeding internally. Feels like a ruptured spleen, damaged liver. She's been beat almost dead. Head ringing, everything blurred. Concussion for sure. Face all fucked up. Yeah, there's a major knot to this.

"This is what will happen every time, Elaine. You must comply with your training, with your treatment. Now, focus. Reach into Devon, push his power, push it until he screams again."

"No. I'm done, asshole. No more."

"Devon, hit her again. This time break a rib."

"Rrrraaaaaaggghhhhnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!"

"Devon, you will comply. The longer you fight, the worse it will be for both of you."

He's going to do it. She's reaching out with her power, but not at him? Where? Oh, shit.

BADOOOOOMMMMM!

Fuuuck! Ruptured ear drums. Devastation is down. Moran is crawling out from under the door. She's shifting her power to Moran? What? Why? Shit, get back to work, sort through the knot, don't just rubberneck. Moran is making this one worse. He's fucking with all of them. The more she amps him, the worse it gets, I can feel the hate, the rage in her. She's trying to burn him out. Is this the first time she did it? "Is it? Was it?"

"Yes. That's what he wanted me to do to Devastation. Now it's his turn."

Another kid, young one, coming in behind Nuke. Looks familiar. Shit! She did it! Moran's down.

"Fixer, take care of Moran."

"Okay Generator. Only take a minute."

Fixer? The healer? Oh. I get it. Just fix the knot, get the fuck out. Christ, I really don't need this memory stuck in my head. Fuck! Nuke exploded his balls! They're just going to keep healing him and fucking him up. Dammit! She's amping him, he's fucking with all of them, it's all twisted up.

He's gonna fucking blow!

Shit! Shit! That fucking hurt. He's fucking dead. Brains leaking out of his ears. She's not feeling any power in him at all. But all the fucking kids, they're almost screaming with power. They're screaming, period. She's gotta get control of herself. Pull it in, Elaine, you got this kiddo. Fuck, of course she does, this is memory. If she didn't get control, there wouldn't be a Ragnarok.

"Look, I'm out. I said I'd help with this, but I'm out. You guys are fucking nuts."

"Yeah, Fixer, just patch us all up, and go. Just remember, never fucking cross the horsemen, you dig?"

"Yeah Nuke, I dig. Like a dog after a bone. Look, Nuke, I can't fix all of this. I only do physical things. Bodies, machines, computers; I can't do anything about what he did when he died."

"The fuck are you talking about kid?"

"He did something in your head, to your power. You and Elaine."

"It's Generator, rat turd."

"Yeah, sorry, sorry. Just, I can't fix everything, okay? Don't kill me, okay?"

"Get it done. Get out."

Fixer wasn't lying. I can't tell what happened to Nuke, but she's got more than a rut, more than a knot. Fuck it, pull it out the hard way. "Generator, I think this is gonna hurt. No easy way about it. You ready?"

"Shut up and finish."

Gaaaaaahhhhhhh! God damn it! She's out. God, it's like a fucking maggot, eating at me. What the fuck am I gonna do with this? I can't offload this into anyone, no telling what the fuck it would do. Am I stuck with this shit? There's gotta be a way. That shitstain made a psychic fucking cancer, or something. Latched it into their powers. Every fucking time they used them, it ate deeper.

Okay, okay, get your shit together Kerry. Follow the threads, follow the memories. Anything left? Anything else I can take with me? Traces, yeah. Clean it all up while she's out. Less traumatic for both of us. Okay. That's the best I can do. Dial down her vitals, coax the brainwaves into healthy sleep, let her recover.

---

"I don't really care, Kerry."

"Don, man, we fucked up. You have to give me a shot to fix it. If I could fix him first, she'd be way more likely to agree to all of this again. Trust us both more. It makes sense. I can do the job on her better now that I know what happened. If I can contain one of those little psychic parasites, I can contain two."

"You don't get it, Kerry. The only fucking way I'm repeating any of this, anything since you fixed me, is if the whole thing fails. It's been too damn hard keeping everything in the air as it is. I'm not fucking risking it on a maybe, I'm not undoing the first fucking success I've had with her because you got caught up in her emotions and trauma."

"That's not what it fucking is, you asshole! We fucking killed Nuke, and I could have saved them both! I've had the brain worm locked down for three days! It isn't getting out. She's recovering well. She's still a hard ass, but the crazy is gone. If we had her and Nuke, in their right minds, wouldn't that be better?"

"Maybe. Maybe it would. But I'm not risking it on a maybe. I promise though, if we can't get the job done like this, that'll be the next thing to try."

"You are such a fucking prick, man. You know I'm fucking right. I felt him before Moran fucked them up. And I felt him before I killed him. Before we killed him. I deserve a fucking chance to undo that. He didn't have to fucking die, Don."

"Why the fuck do you care? Before Max got you down here, you were hunting a drug ring down. You had cancers on board, syphilis. You were going to fucking kill them with it. Why the sudden flash of conscience? I'll tell you why. You picked up more of her than you think. You're feeling her grief, her friendship, and it's coloring your thinking."

"Fuck you, Don, fuck you."

So, reposting here for continuity. Welcome back literature.cafe!

---

I really don't want to do this. I need some fucking valium. Maybe some meth to counter that fuzziness. No, coke, definitely coke; I get too assholey on meth, even at low doses. Yeah, a valium, a snort of powder, then a toke or three to smooth them together. Then snag some of Max's fancy scotch. Need to get some addiction built up to offload, I can't rely on finding good shit at shelters any more. Everything around here, I've hoovered up and used. Not like I can weaponize jock itch or scabies.

Fuck. I'm just delaying the inevitable. I hate the mental shit. Hate it even worse when the patient has to be babied into even considering it. Shit. Here goes nothing.

"So, uh, Elaine? Or am I supposed to stick with Generator?"

"You're the doctor, Doctor."

"I'm not a fucking doctor."

"Yes, I know, but your little glare is so adorable."

"Lady, are you ever going to stop fucking with me?"

"No. Not likely. You killed Nuke. He was my oldest friend, you scabby little asshole. I will absolutely fuck with you every day I'm stuck here. I will absolutely fuck with you every chance I get. Now just imagine how it would be if I didn't like you."

"Fucking hell. Look, you know damn good and well Eternus killed Nuke; I was just the bullet he used. Not that I really give a fuck, Nuke was a walking genocide waiting to happen. You're damn near as bad. You kept your buddies juiced up while they killed thousands. You did plenty of that killing yourself. I'm not fucking apologizing for Nuke. Nobody I ever dumped into deserved it more."

"You asked a question, I answered it. The rest is you posturing and virtue signalling."

"Fuck that. I don't have virtue to signal."

"And that is why I like you. That's why I'm willing to hear you out."

"So, on to business?"

"Unless you want to pollute yourself first."

"I promised I wouldn't."

"Your reliance on the chemicals is a weakness. It'll get you killed some day. Maybe by me."

This asshole right here. I swear to fucking god. "Yeah, yeah, people keep trying, people keep failing. I got junkie power. Can't knock me over. Let's fucking do this. You know that Eternus wants me to try and sort out your shit. Stabilize you, give you the chance to not be a fucking homicidal psycho. Your sister begged me to at least try.

I can fucking do it. I hate it, and every bit of it will suck for both of us, but I can fix what your power broke, and you won't lose any of the power. I've done it a few times."

"Then why didn't you do it for Nuke?"

"Fuck! Fuckity fuck fuck! Lady, until our first discussion, I had no fucking clue part of his shit was power related too. I fucking told you that. I still would have done it, I just might have regretted it. But I didn't know, and from what I felt when I was offloading, I'm not sure I could fix him. His shit was worse than yours. You? I can feel the core of it from here. It's a tangled up, horrible fucking knot, but I can see how to untie it. His? It wasn't a knot, it was him. I can't fix what isn't broken, and he wasn't broken, he was just that fucking nasty."

"You didn't know him before."

"Neither did you! You said you didn't meet him until you were both in the Program. That shit fucked a lot of kids up, but I can promise you that Nuke went into it already fucked up. It just made him worse. No, I know the difference between a psychological injury and someone that was born fucked. I can feel it like a throbbing tooth. A regular trauma? Those burn, they itch, but they don't hurt just to feel. The people born fucked in the head pulse with it, it radiates off them if I don't shield like crazy."

"Bull. Shit. When I met Nuke, he was the one good kid in the bunch. Devastation was the one that was already hungry to hurt things."

"My power can feel shit. Part of how it works is reading what is and isn't 'natural' to the patient. Anything that isn't part of them, anything that's malfunctioning feels one way. Things that are natural, but not working the way it's supposed to for others, those feel another way. It's the difference between someone with a brain injury and someone with Down's. One's caused by external factors, the other internal, and my power can fix the external ones, but not the internal. Nuke? His shit was internal. Yours is caused by the power. I dunno about Devastation, never met the guy."

"I think you're full of it. You're playing mental gymnastics to try and escape responsibility for not doing the hard stuff."

"God, fuck you, generator. You think I haven't tried... No, no, I don't owe you shit. You're the one with a body count in four digits, not me."

"Don't try pulling that card, doctor, you have a body count too, and you're a 'hero'. The only difference between you and me is that I don't lie to myself. You, Eternus, that skidmark Streak, Hellion, you've all killed. Word is you've almost hit triple digits yourself. Oh, I know, they're all criminal low lifes. Gangsters and thugs. You're a one man epidemic, laying waste to anyone that offends you. You're not better than me, you're not better than Devastation, and you're sure not better than Nuke.

Admit it. You like doing it. You like the feeling of cramming disease and misery into your victims, just the same as I like crushing the life out of the useless sacks of meat that get in my way."

I should have taken the fucking valium. I'm going to. Fuck having this conversation straight.

"Look at you, running away into your cloudy little drug haze. You? Help me? You can't even help yourself. You're a coward and a killer. At least I don't lie about it to myself."

"Yeah, yeah, big bad Generator, proud of herself. I didn't ask for this shit any more than you did, but at least you don't get cancer and have to carry it around. You carry a dozen tumors around and see how you feel about drugs then."

"Then go get some. Bring them back. Give them to me. You can take them back out any time, right? I'll make you a bet. We'll let them sit there with no drugs until I give up, and anyone would eventually. You take them back and see if you can go as long. You win? I let you fuck with my head. I win? Well, I win, there's nothing I want from you, but you'll shut your mouth and leave me alone about it. I'll do my part with the big bad horde of Kittens either way, I gave my word on that already."

Can't lie, the kitten thing pulled a laugh out of me; I'd had the same thought more than once. And I put the valium back in the bottle.

---

"So? What happened?"

"What do you think? I took her bet."

"Kerry, did you not maybe think to consult someone first? Like, maybe the guy that's going to have to eat a bullet if this fucks up?"

"Ahhhh. No. No, I didn't. It was kind of an immediate thing. Couldn't go running off to ask permission."

"Fuck me. Kerry, how long will she last if she doesn't give up? How bad is what you gave her?"

"End stage stuff. Had Lightspeed run me down to Charlotte, the pediatric oncology unit there had asked for healers a couple of weeks ago. You know how it is, there's never enough healers that can do anything about cancer at all. And I'm not in that loop. I haven't been into all this organized shit, ever. But I cleared the ward.

She's dead in maybe a week. She'll be unable to function in maybe four days. Took a nasty glioblastoma from a toddler. A toddler for fuck's sake."

"You're an idiot. You need to fucking fix this. And I mean now, Kerry."

"Don, suck my cock. You aren't my boss. You're barely my friend, and half of that is your own fucking memories. But in the entire time you've known me, this loop or any others, have you ever managed to give me a fucking order and not get kicked in the nuts?"

"You're fucking with the entire human race, you asshole!"

"No, I'm fucking with one sociopath. I'm trying to change that fact about her. I'm the only person I know of that can do it. Oh, there's people that can fuck with minds, change shit, but they'd fuck up her power because they'd be laying in blocks and changing memories. I can fix most of it, and she'll still be able to do her thing. So maybe give me some fucking trust here."

"And what if she dies? What if something goes wrong?"

"Well, then when you loop back and kick me in the nuts, I'll deserve it."

---

"Okay Generator, you ready?"

"Es. Getid out. Can't fink."

I can feel the brain tumor, like an eldritch evil, tentacles spread even worse than they were in the kid I took it from. The leukemia ain't fun, nor the others, but glioblastoma is a nightmare. It's why she can't think straight, or talk right. Fuck my life. She made it five days. She's on death's door, and still glaring at me.

Okay Kerry, suck it up.

Damn it! That fucking sucks. Skull feels like it's going to explode. Vision blurry. I gotta make it six fucking days. Six fucking days. The fuck? Did I just shit myself? Why am I on the floor? I fucking hate cancers. Always some fresh fucking hell, and I can't just offload this into a rat. Six fucking days. At least she's calling for help.

"So, Doctor, you think you'll win this bet? I don't. But, unlike you, I get to go have a nice massage, drink some hot cocoa, and listen to some music. You get to suffer, and then lose. You'll be popping morphine in an hour. Weakling."

Was the kick really necessary? Fuck. Good. John's here, "cnt mve rit jon. Shit slf."

"I can tell. We'll get you cleaned up."

Six fucking days. At least I'll be able to hold my bowels by morning. I hope; I've never taken anything this bad.

Generator was in motion before I could speak again. It probably would have been a reset for me, but Evelyn moved faster than her sister, stepping in front of me, arm extended, "Stop! Damn it Elaine, don't do this! Stop and think for just a second before you fly off the handle again!"

I don't know why, but it worked. Elaine stopped. She looked at her sister, glaring, then raised an eyebrow, "Fine. I'm stopped. I'm thinking. I'm thinking I want to read the future in your boyfriend's liver."

"Really? Elaine, you thought astrology was bull even when we were kids. No way are you buying into vivimancy."

"That degree of yours sure bought you some big words." But then she laughed. Not a crazy villain laugh, just a throaty, sane one.

"Well, I was too pretty for print journalism, so I have to break out the fancy vocabulary when I get a chance. They make me dumb things down for TV."

I kept my mouth shut. Mama Wesley might have raised a dummy, but it wasn't me. I was also smart enough to step out of way when Generator took Ev by the hand and moved to the bench. They sat for a moment, both looking nervous. Which made me nervous, because Generator nervous seems like a very volatile situation. But Ev lit up with that ratings generating smile of hers and just placed her hand on her sister's. She sighed, "It took some digging you know. To find Charley."

"I thought he was gone. Lost forever."

"He almost was. The old storage shed was falling apart, and the bin he was in wasn't in great shape. He had some fuzzy bits on him that weren't supposed to be there, and was missing parts that were. But he didn't smell too bad, despite the horrible conditions. Don, Eternus, cleaned him up a little, then asked a favor from a lady that can control things on a molecular level to get rid of anything that would keep damaging him.

He was going to have repairs made, but we talked about it and wanted to ask you first. I didn't think you'd even remember him, much less think about him... when you were about to die. You did though, so we thought it would be a bad idea to go too far."

Generator looked at me, glaring, "Didn't want the crazy monster to bite your head off."

"I didn't, no. I also didn't want you to think it was a fake, or to change it enough that it wouldn't mean the same. Look, Generator, we've thrown down a handful of times that you remember, and a lot more that you don't because they haven't happened yet, or they got avoided. But you don't really know me any more than I know you beyond knowing you can kick my ass nine out of ten times. You may not believe it, but I didn't go through the trouble of all this without considering how it might effect you.

Yeah, if it saves the fucking human race, I'd put a bullet in your face right now. I'd lie, steal, damn near anything if it meant the world would be preserved and people I love would survive. But I'm not fucking with you. Charley? You brought it up after the two of us had fought as hard as we could. We were going to die, and you showed me enough of the person inside you that I found hope. Hope we might survive. Not then, we were beyond fucked then. But hope that maybe, maybe the human inside you, the real person might be worth talking to.

I had enough hope to keep dying, to keep fighting for this moment, this meeting right here. Thousands of years, Generator. Thousands of years of pain and fear and misery that Evelyn could barely make bearable, where she was the one fucking thing to keep me going enough to hold on to hope.

This little horse?", and here I pulled the stuffed animal out of my jacket pocket, a tiny, ragged horse, faded to an almost white purple, only one eye left, and stuffing coming out of a half dozen holes, "this horse, I would never fucking lie about. Because if I did, it would break any hope I could have of you believing me, of some day maybe even trusting me.

Please. Generator. Elaine. At least think about it. Help me save Evelyn. Help me save everyone."

Silence crashed across the woods. She gaped at me. I could see her eyes flicking while her brain churned, processing all of what I'd said. I could also see her emotions fluttering back and forth from rage to sorrow, to what looked a hell of a lot like hope from the outside.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. She tilted her head and watched whatever my own face was doing, behind the tears I felt crawling their way down.

She stood and crossed the few feet of earth between us. She took Charley from my hand, then reached up to pull a tear from my cheek. She licked her fingertip, "You can get this fixed? You can turn this back into Charley?"

"Absolutely."

"How long?"

"Two days, sooner if you say it has to be, I can pull a favor to jump the line."

"Three days. Be back here, with Charley. If he's right, we'll talk again, see what happens. If he isn't, I'll hunt down you and everyone you ever thought about loving and eat their faces."

She walked away, turning at the tree line to wave to Ev.

---

"Jesus fucking Christ, Don! Is she really the only way? She's fucking batshit."

"Yeah, she has what we need anyway. I don't know of anyone else that can amplify the way she can. Plus her other powers. We tried Kickstart, that kid from Compton twice. Even talked a bunch of doctors and healers into getting Dynamo out of the nursing home and dialing back the dementia so he could try. Nowhere near as close to just surviving as Generator going at it half-ass.

Mike, I swear I've tried every idea thrown at me. There was a point where I was looping the last six months before they show up just throwing the kitchen sink at the problem, every whacked out plan anyone could think up. We even tried mind controlling Nuke, stuffing him full of juice at a reactor and detonating him. Took a lot of them out, but not all of them, and it blew a crater big enough to reach the mantle. Then the fucking Kitain just tore into us again.

Your sorcerer buddy? He called up half of hell once and the Kitain just mowed them all down. They're individually powerful enough to be a problem, but their group mind, the connection they have and the numbers , it's like fighting an army of The Ragnarok juiced up on boost."

"How... how bad do I die?"

"Bad, Mike, real bad. Torn to pieces. Your fire hurts them, and anything that hurts them gets swarmed. Dynamo got you going hot enough they couldn't reach you without a lot of them blown to ash, but his radius wasn't enough. They figured out he was boosting you and took him out. We all got ripped up then. Only good thing is that they don't waste time. They kill fast, when they can."

"Generator it is then. I'd suck Del off if it keeps me in once piece."

"Like I'm lettin' you near my junk. Don, you got the thing fixed right, right?"

"Evelyn says so. It certainly matches old pictures. If it isn't right, I can probably manage to loop back precisely enough to not have to try to navigate the meeting again. But guys, she's chaos. It's taken a lot of repeats to get here. We have to be fucking careful. I can't risk having to go back and ending up before the meeting. It took too damn many microscopic adjustments to get her there and talking. No fucking crazy shit when we're in the field, no fucking speeding on the highway, no fucking jaywalking!"

"C'mon Don, it can't be that bad."

"The fuck it can't, Mandy. This whole fucking thing is like juggling razors that want my blood. Death by a million cuts, even if I get it right. I'm not joking, I can't risk the whole fucking world because one of us got sloppy in a fight with some schlub like Titan. I might have to leave someone mangled, crippled, dead even. The further we get from the meeting, the more cushion I'll have, but if she ever agrees to let Kerry help her sort out her mental shit, I'm not going to risk fucking that up either. And we've only got a few years to get there. And I still don't have any clue how Quake and Devastation are going to fit into things. And a dozen other little unknowns can come up because there's always a chance something new occurs because one minor choice we make."

"Okay. Okay Don, we're all on careful mode now, no problem."

"Thanks guys. I'm sorry I couldn't give you everything before this. I'm sorry for the other little things I can't let you know yet too. But this was the big one, the one that lets me at least brief you on the big picture, start getting you as ready for the Kitain as possible."

---

---

Okay. For anyone that has been following along, you have likely realized that this has not only gone well beyond the prompt that started it, or the ones that continued it; this thing has a life of its own in my head now. I have zero clue how many more "chapters" are going to show up along the way to the final scene that's burning a hole in my head, waiting to be set loose. But that ending is there, and I'm trying hard to get there without fucking it up, just like Eternus is. Unlike him, I'm not so confident I can manage to not fuck it up.

There's been flaws and dubious choices along the way so far. I know there's gonna be others. But holy shit, that final scene in my head? There's part of me that wants to get it out now lol.

Well folks, things are chugging in my brain again. I have no clue of the pace of these last chapters and sub sections will keep up or not, but here's another.

---

"It's time Ev. We've got to call her."

"Oh, Don, are you sure there's no other way?"

"If there is, I haven't seen it. The closest we ever got was when they came late and she sided with us against the Kitain. Nuke is out of the picture. From everything she said, she was fighting for you, not with us. And gods, Ev, we almost made it that time.

Every time since, I've tried to duplicate that timing, and it's too fucking unpredictable. She's unpredictable. Even when I get things almost exactly the same, she swings out of nowhere. Turns on us, goes ham on her own, runs off to find you and your parents to, well, she tries different things."

"That I can believe. She never can tell if she loves us or hates us."

"Exactly. Every time I tried to recruit her, even when I told her everything, she laughed in my face. When she was feeling nice. She killed me five times, messed me up three or four others. A couple she went after you.

We've only got a few years before they come. We need that time with her. To show her we can be trusted. To convince her to let Kerry help her."

"She won't. When her power kicked in, it broke her just as bad as Finale broke you. My parents tried to get her help. They tried so hard, Don."

"I know, baby, I know. It's okay. It's going to be okay. I promise. I can keep you safe. She can't hurt you, or your folks, not for real. I can't die baby. I'll always fix it. I loved you a dozen times before that interview that worked. I've fought every single cycle to never go back before it because you are my reason."

"Don. You can't make me everything. Nobody can be that, do that."

"Ev, my love, my eternity. I'm half convinced that meeting you is the entire reason my power exists."

"Damn it, Don. I can't tell if you're joking."

"Not really. But maybe a little. I have no clue if there's a reason for any of this, any of us that develop power accidentally, or with no warning. I just know that when the dying gets too bad, to where I'd just give up and hide instead of trying to move things to survival for this shitty world, you're what makes it worth it. Don't get me wrong, the team, my friends, they help. But you're the one that keeps me going for thousands of years."

"And Elaine really is the key to not having to die any more?"

"If she isn't, then I don't know what to do."

"What if I can't get her to meet alone? What if she asks about Nuke?"

"Doesn't matter, really. Since Kerry tuned me up, I've gotten better control over exactly when I pop back in. If I'm careful, I can peg it down to maybe fifteen minutes, if I don't want to just do a full loop. That won't last forever, but he said he should be able to keep me tuned well enough to get Generator with us like that. Once she's on board, nothing needs that degree of precision, or it hasn't when we've failed to recruit her.

If she asks about Nuke, tell her the truth. He died from injuries sustained in fighting us, and we'll release the body to her in person, or arrange for it to be handled however her and the rest of The Ragnarock prefer. There's no way to keep it secret, and I plan to tell her when I talk to her anyway. I plan to tell her everything. If it screws things up, well, I'll give you a different answer next loop."

"Okay. And if she doesn't answer?"

"Then we try again. It's all we can do, Ev."

---

It took a few minor adjustments, but here we are. I hate that she insisted on Ev being here too. If she freaks out, I'm going to lose it. No. Kerry is standing by. The team is in the transport, and Switch is primed. I got this.

I sit the urn beside me and stand, checking the tree line. Movement. It's her.

Generator doesn't look as terrifying as she can be. She's positively dainty. Always dressed like she's going to a charity ball. But she barely comes up to my chin, which has never stopped her from punching it. Hard. Her powers aren't physical, but she trains with Devastation, and that asshole prides himself on not needing powers to kill. Without a gun, she can wipe the floor with me. She's done it twice. That's with Del training me, or trying to.

Her hair is green this time. There's a daisy tucked behind her ear. Ev is shifting on the bench, I can almost hear her pulse spiking.

"Hello. Should I call you Generator, or Elaine?"

"Just because you married my sister doesn't put us on a first name basis, Eternus."

"That's why I asked. Do you want the remains now?"

"Yes. Asshole. Did you kill him? One of those special bullets?"

"No, but I would have. He's... He was a threat that made a bigger threat even more dangerous."

I picked up the urn and handed it to her, "I am sorry for your loss. Genuinely. I don't like the killing."

"We do. I do. So, tell me why I'm not going to kill both of you? Evelyn said you'd answer anything I asked. Anything."

"My word on it. You might not like the answers, and you might not understand all of them, but I'll answer with truth."

"Well? Why am I not going to kill you?"

"Oh. I thought that was a threat, not a question."

"It's both."

"Fine. You won't kill us for two main reasons. First, if you do, the entire planet is doomed. Second, you can't. You can't kill me. You've tried."

"I don't give a damn about the planet. All of you can go straight to hell. I'm aware I haven't killed you yet. What makes you think I can't?"

"Because I'll just come back and do better."

"You fucker!"

I could see the realization click into place. She'd seen the interview, everyone had, "Yup. Misdirection. I had plenty of practice keeping a straight face and playing it off. It's why we could catch Nuke. It's why we will eventually catch Devastation and Quake. You get enough tries at it, and it's easy. I've killed all three of them. You're the hard one to kill. But I don't want any of you dead. I've been working hard to avoid it. Nuke just wouldn't let us. He fucks it up every time, or you and your so called horsemen do while trying to rescue him.

So, this time, when he died, I didn't try to fix it. And won't, unless you can convince me that there's a way to get you here peacefully, with an open mind, ready to talk without him dying."

"There's nothing you could say. I wouldn't believe it, I'd think you had a psychic fuck with me. It's been tried. The psychic part, I don't know about your time manipulation."

"It isn't manipulation. If I die, I go back. It's automatic. I can control some part of when I go back to, but it happens without me being conscious or aware. My team? We all keep passwords for it. Codes they can give me that I can tell them in the past to convince them to do something batshit crazy without having to explain a plan. Most of the time, they just trust me and roll with it. Sometimes, well, I've had to shoot Streak a lot. He kept getting us killed fighting the four of you."

"And you say you don't like killing. You sure did a good job of blowing Cinder's head apart. You tore Finale to pieces. You're like me. Like Devastation."

"No. I'm not. I just get fucking tired of dying. It fucking hurts. I noticed you didn't mention Quake."

"He's not like us. He doesn't enjoy it. Very much a means to an end kind of guy."

"Good to know. Again, I don't enjoy it. Sometimes there just isn't a better option."

"You're right about that. That's how I learned to like it so much. Enough prattle. You didn't let your secret out to keep darling Evelyn alive, or yourself. Why did you really want to talk?"

"I want you on the team. We need you, Generator. The second best option didn't work. Even when you four weren't causing interference. In a few years, back in my original timeline, our team managed to take Quake, Nuke, and Devastation in. We get back home, and there's an alarm.

The Kitain. They wiped us out in minutes the first time. Back there, I would only loop a day or so. I'd die, come back maybe the night before and get a re-do. After the Kitain wiped us, I went back a decade. Back to my first day with the team. Without you, I don't think it's possible to win. I know they handled all four of you several times. In minutes. We tried just ignoring you and preparing for them. You guys are just too powerful, too dangerous to ignore. You are why that is. The other three? They're world shakers solo. But you make them world breakers.

We need to be world breakers too."

"Did you really think that would work?"

"By itself, no."

"So you just wanted to waste time? You have to have more of a plan than that, or is this just a test run?"

"Well, it is the first time I've managed to get you to agree to a meeting."

"Wait, why should I believe any of this shit? How do I know this isn't some kind of bullshit psyop?"

Damn it, don't lose her Don. Don't let her slip into the crazy, "Because one time, out of all the attempts we've made to keep the world alive and in one piece, the only time we got close was with you helping. And we talked some. You told me that you didn't want to die without taking some of them out with you, and you wish you could have Charley with you.

I didn't know what that meant at first. Now I do. I think you do too, and I think that when I give him to you here in a second, you'll have to decide if you really did tell me about him, or if it's some psychic shit."

---

---

I promise, I didn't end it there to be an asshole. I have to make a couple of decisions, and I don't want to have to undo anything, even though that's the whole concept of Eternus. I think it's insulting to do something that cheap. This chapter snuck up on me before I could really buckle down and know where the next chain of events would go. So it has to pause here until I can figure out which version, which possibilities really work, and which of them spark enough inspiration to give me what I need to be able to write.

So, I think this fourth section is all it takes to wrap up this particular chapter of the overall story.

There's loose threads still, but that's been the case for every chapter so far, and I dig the vibe that gives. I dunno, I'm starting to see the entire story as a living thing at this point. I never expected the original short to have anything else added to it. I'm not sure how well it'll work as a single collected story, but I really dig the way it's unfolding in my head.

Anyway, part 6D

Edit: so, I figure that because of the change from .world to .cafe after I had done the first prompt, this whole thing might be a pain in the rear to read from the beginning. I went looking for somewhere reasonable to make it all public as the story progresses. Settled on wattpad for lack of anything better

https://www.wattpad.com/story/416773738

---

"Okay Kerry, I get it. You had to get rid of it fast, but you fucked me hard in the process. Without even the offer of a reach-around after the fact. But I'll be damned if I'm opening up the med supplies until you tell me exactly what in the immortal shit is going on with Eternus."

"General, I'm not your fucking soldier."

"That's not why I have the fucking name, asshole."

"I know, but the point remains. I'm not called The Doctor because I'm a fucking doctor, but people sure as fuck expect me to comply with their ideas of what a doctor is. It's the only reason I put up with your brother; he doesn't."

"Are we going to sit here jerking off, or are you going to spill?"

"Fuck! This would be easier with at least some benzos on board. No, shut your mouth, I just pulled off a fucking miracle and have been given a blast of shit ever since.

Don is going to be fine, for now. I fucking fixed what was wrong. His brain was melting. And with all the shit I saw while we were hooked up, I'm amazed it took this long. You know me and him have been friends for years in his perspective? I just fucking downloaded parts of those memories of myself. I'm flipping the fuck out inside because everything is fucking surreal right now. I don't know where I end and the other mes begin. Yeah, I shoved all the brain damage into Nuke, and you're welcome for the free lobotomy of that walking WMD.

But the memories? Not just of me, but his memories of himself fragmenting and dying over and over again. Some of those are stuck in my brain now, and I don't know if it's permanent.

He'll be fine for a while, once he wakes up. The shit that broke him isn't likely to happen again soon, Finale's little time fuckery wouldn't be easy to pull off in purpose, or that's what Don thinks.

Damn it! I fucking remember sitting around with you, drinking hard cider and playing cribbage. This shit needs to go away, and I need some fucking drugs to deal with this shit!"

"Fine. Fine. But keep talking."

"Just the Xanax for now, but pull out that fentanyl and the ketamine. Gods, the ketamine might actually wipe some of this out.

Got anything good to swallow these with?"

"Define good."

"Something other than water. Preferably with a high proof."

"Follow me."

---

"Damn, not shabby Max! Breaking out the barrel proof stuff. Thanks.

Yeah, this'll help.

So, you know anything about how Don's shit really works? Like, beyond what the two of you may have talked about."

"Maybe. Once he started having trouble, I tried to find help. Some stuff came up, but I'm not sure how accurate it is."

"Well, General ol' son, Don doesn't really know for sure, but I can make a guess based on what I felt in him. Maybe not for sure, but call it an educated guess. His loops aren't just him waking up with memories of the future. His brain is different. You ever notice how he can keep all kinds of shit straight in his head?"

"Yeah, his memory is freakish. He's rattled off exact quotes of things from years ago. He can hold really long chess games in his head for months, maybe years."

"That's part of it, yeah. There's limits, but his brain is more elastic than the rest of us. Faster too, but nothing superhuman, just smarts. The key is that his brain isn't exactly stable in time. At least, that's the idea me and him cook up in a couple of years. It's the time worm thingy."

"What? Time worm?"

"Whew, Xanax is hitting.

You know, how we think we're these apes here and now, four arms, four legs.... Wait, that's not right, two of each.

Anyways. That's not what we really are. We move through space, right, I wave my arm like this, it moves from point A to point B, and you see an arm. I do it fast enough, maybe it blurs, but it starts here, ends there. You with me?"

"I think so. Should you really be drinking that much after that many pills?"

"Don't worry, my tolerance is ridiculous, it doesn't really get dumped unless I try super hard.

My arm though. It didn't move from here to there. It did, but it also moved from then to now. And before it moved, it was here, and back in the infirmary, and down the stairs. If you look at anyone from outside time and space, they don't have arms. They're one long, skin colored worm with wiggling extremities like eel fins. We're worms. We're time worms."

"Okay, I'm following. And Don's brain is different than ours."

"Yeah. Not really physically, not in any way that matters, though he is at the extreme end of some structures related to memory and time perception. But he can kinda see time from the outside. At least, we think that's part of how it works. He's not so much moving in time as he is experiencing a shift in perspective.

When he loops, his body doesn't come back, but his brain remembers seeing everything, doing it all. The dying part is the trigger, not the real core of his power. He's, kinda sorta maybe, always seeing his entire timeline, and death just moves the point of view back until a time-place where his meta-self judges change can be made."

"Were you both high when you came up with that?"

"I refuse to answer on grounds it would be prejudicial.

Look Max, neither of us is sure that's exactly what happens, but it explains part of it. It's why every time we meet for the first time, with our brains synced, I can actually pull his memories of the future. At least, that's the hypothesis.

What it doesn't explain is why Finale's time bubble thingamajig broke him. Finale saw multiple Dons. Don was multiple himselves. So there were other bodies, which doesn't fit the theory, but we can't figure out if that was the boosted power causing it, interfering with Don's power, Don's power interacting with Finale's brain, or what.

But it shouldn't have broken him. His brain already keeps track of thousands of himself. Thousands of conflicting memories."

"Okay. So that's why it won't happen again soon?"

"Yeah, but it's likely to happen again eventually. Even his brain can't sustain eternal rewriting, and that's what it does to his brain, as opposed to his mind, his meta-self that's partially outside of space-time.

I pulled all of the copies of him into one him. Which was a fucking nightmare because I almost lost my self, my identity. I was fucking drowning in him by the time I was halfway through. I had told him to tell me to go deep. So I did. And if I hadn't gotten rid of the echo of it all, I would have drowned. My power, it's fucking weird. Like, I pull a tumor out, and one grows in me. But it isn't a real cancer, it's almost the ghost of one. Even metastatic cancers, they don't keep progressing, I just get all the pain and symptoms, but never get to die.

So, you know, fuck Nuke, because better him than me. And on that point, you should let him die. He will; when I dump something, it is the real thing, not a xerox. Dunno why, but that's how it works. The loop he's been in? Where he's dying and locked into this specific day? That's because the rest of Ragnarock try to spring him. They get ahold of records of where he went and found this place.

Don and me were the last ones they got to.

If Nuke dies, it probably won't happen."

"I'm supposed to just let him rot? With all the crap you shoved into him? You said something about syphilis. What else was there?"

"Max, my man, I came here after six months of hunting down some really nasty motherfuckers. I still haven't found them, and I was saving up everything I could from going around homeless shelters across Jersey and New York. He's got cancer of the everything. Honestly? He'll be dead by tomorrow if he doesn't get cured."

"Then do it! You can't condemn him to death like that!"

"The fuck I can't. Max, I couldn't give two shits about Nuke. You want to try, go the fuck ahead. I'm going to get fucked up and try to forget as much of that pain as I can before I take on anything new.

Oh, and yes, I apparently sign on next month. I'm on fucking vacation until then. But I'll keep you lot of fuckwits in better shape and it'll reduce how often Don has to loop so maybe the fucking Kitain don't ass rape everything. You really don't want to see those fuckers. I sure didn't, but it was right there in Don's head. The things they do, Max, even I gotta take a stand. But fuck Nuke. That's on you to fix."

Welllll, if anyone read the previous one, I said this would be part three. Looks like there's also going to be a part 4/D. Maybe a fifth, depending on how much quiet time I can get when doing the next section. That's the real barrier right now, being able put aside other things and get it out of my head and onto the screen.

Anyway, here it is

---

"Lightstorm, help him sit up, I need to get Eternus back in bed."

"On it, chief."

And she was. The Doctor was trembling and failing to speak because of it, and she's got more experience with such things. Her dad had Parkinson's. All Don needed was some muscle and a quick survey for new injury. I generated a dupe of myself to go get John from the office. Called up another one to help lift Don. I could hear The Doctor stammering n over and over.

Don seemed to be okay. No shaking, no signs of injury from falling out of the bed, but I'd leave that for John; I have picked up some field medic skills over the years, but no formal training.

"Lightstorm, you good?"

"Yeah chief, I think so. He's trying to say something, we just have to be patient and let him get it out until your brother can examine them."

Kerry, The Doctor, started shaking his head, trying to stand and talk, "n-n-n-n-n". I crossed the room and brought a duplicate in to give him extra support.

John came in at a jog and started cursing, "Fucking hell! Why the bloody hell are you moving my patient!?"

"I'm not. He's moving, I'm trying to keep him from falling."

"Don't. Kerry, sit your ass back on that bed until I can examine you!"

Kerry firmly shook his head, "uh-uh! G-g-g-g-d-d-dmp"

John moved in front of him, "Okay, okay, but you can't dump that into anyone here. At least let me make sure your vitals are solid."

Kerry growled and grabbed for John's lab coat, fumbling at the pocket where he kept a pen. He snagged it and grabbed it like a toddler with a crayon, all fist and willpower. He leaned into John and started scrawling something on the lab coat.

It was one word, when he pulled back to show it: NUKE. I didn't figure he meant a bomb, and it only took a second to get what he meant, "You can't. He's a prisoner. He's not an option."

Kerry garbled a scream at me that sounded suspiciously like a fuck you, and tried to push past John. Mandy stayed with him, and gave me a glare, "Then what are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know! But he can't just push whatever he picked up from Don onto a prisoner!"

She rolled her eyes and there was a flash. They were both gone once the spots cleared from my vision. Fucking photonic speed. I took off down to the secure detention unit. No way would I get there in time to stop them, but I had to try. John was cursing up a storm of his own, but was moving to examine Don.

By the time I got to Nuke's cell, the door was open and The Doctor was exiting; walking perfectly fine, but scowling. He grunted at me, "Got any fentanyl? Maybe some ketamine?" Mandy laughed.

"I did not laugh. I was busy not punching either of them. I settled for ranting at them about violating a prisoner's rights. Mandy gave me the eye roll again and flashed away. I keep trying to break her of that. She keeps rolling her eyes and flashing away when I do. You know how she is, Del."

"Yeah, holy hell do I. That's one of a dozen reasons we only had one date. But ignore her, what did the new guy do to Nuke?"

"He took the brain damage he pulled out of Don and dumped it into him. Apparently he dumped everything he was carrying.The herpes, the syphilis, two or three cancers, some minor problems Don had that weren't noticeable yet, plus his own addiction."

"That's fucking terrifying. What are you going to do about Nuke?"

"I have no fucking clue. John dosed him up with what he could, but he's a dead man if I can't talk The Doctor into pulling the cancer back out. The syphilis too. He said it was Don's idea to use Nuke. But it's freaky; he sounds like Don. He's even doing that little finger drumming thing Don does when he wants to yell at me but can't."

"You are so fucked, man. Anything I can do?"

"Yeah, take over as senior agent."

"Hell no! I love you man, but I don't love you that much. Besides, I'd fuck it up."

"Yeah. Probably."

"Fuck you!"

"Seriously Del, unless you know a healer that can wipe out what he put into Nuke, this is going to be a shitstorm pouring right on my neck."

"Uh, Max?"

"Yeah Del?"

"I kinda do. You remember that guy I used to date? Back before I joined up here?"

"The beardy one with the tattoos?"

"That's the one. He, uh, asked me to never tell anyone, but, uh, he's kind of a healer. Or can be. He's some kind of magic user, but I saw him fix this stray dog once. Thing was mangy, infested with fleas and ticks, was limping and stank. He drew a little circle, did some mumbo jumbo and the damn thing started hopping around all happy while fleas and ticks were dropping off of it. He still has the dog, last I saw him post on Mammoth."

"Call him."

"Shit. I was afraid you'd ask me to. Yeah, I'll call him. But Max? You gotta promise me, and him, you can't tell anyone. He didn't even like dating me because of the job. Doesn't want the life, you dig? The breakup was friendly, but if he starts getting recruited, he'll hate me."

"Yeah. I can do that. No problem Del."

---

Looks like it'll be 3 sections!

---

Shit. Something went wrong. I hate dealing with the mental stuff. Give me cancer or the clap any day. The mental stuff is way worse.

Okay, what's the situation? Darkness. Voices. Some kind of vibration, and a tingle across my skin.

"Hello? You out there? Eternus? Donald?"

"Yeah, we're here Kerry. Hold on."

Shit. We. Some kind of dissociative disorder? Or is it magic shit? Fuck. Only thing worse than mental shit is magic shit. At least things are getting brighter.

"Hey Kerry."

Fucker! Behind me. Holy shit, he looks bad. That's where the vibration came from. He's flickering.

"Hey. Uh, you know my name?"

"Yeah, we've had this conversation before. Or one like it. You're less predictable than most. It's why we're friends."

"Man, this is the first I've ever met you. Is this some kind of time warp thing?" Gods, I hate time shit even worse than magic shit.

"More or less, we think. We as in all of me and we as in you and us. If it isn't a time thing, it's dimension shit. And yes, I know that's about the only thing you hate worse than the time shit. But we're confident it's time shit."

"That's why I hate the time shit man. Are we in your head, or some kind of power space?"

"My head. Well, our heads. As in yours and mine. You copy the disturbed brain waves into yourself. It syncs us up, almost like psychic shit."

"I hate psychic shit."

"I know. You know that you hate pretty much all the shit."

"Well, yeah, all this shit fucked up my life."

"So you say. Often. And loudly.

"Look, are you going to explain this or keep fucking with me?"

"You figured it out fast the first time we did this, but yeah. My brain got messed up when I ran into Finale. That time freeze bubble fractured my personal timeline. It made me loop back into it multiple times, including a couple of deaths. But when it popped, all of me were folded into one.

Which wouldn't have been great, but it wasn't that many of me. I was coping okay until I died again and looped back. All of me got doubled. And the next time, all of those got doubled.

From what you will have figured out, it was going to start being a problem anyway. All the looping and rewriting of memories on my brain was doing damage. But in the primary timeline, the origin line, I would have made it into my sixties before it showed up.

With the extras in here, it amplifies the effect every loop. I've been lucky so far, we're only a dozen or so deep. So only a few hundred copies of myself so far, each a little out of sync, with fractionally different patterns trying to write onto the same brain. Next one, it'll get close to a thousand of me in here. Then thousands. You've pulled me from the field while you try to really fix the problem, but then something very bad happens, and I make the jump on my own.

You've spent a lot of time in my head. You've even tried riding along, being in this kind of sync when I blow my brains out, but you can't come with me. It's a one man show. This time, when I had to come back, you told me to tell you to go deep and try to get a grasp on each of the mes that were formed in the bubble. You said that you might be able to pull all of those minds together. If not, then it would be psychic or magic shit, because you're at the limit of your power. If that doesn't work, the only other option would fry your brain.

Problem is, you told me that while some really nasty bastards were attacking headquarters, and we got hit by a bomb. That's where I was before I slammed back into myself on the stairs again."

"Fuck me. Fuck me raw and running."

"Yup, that about sums it up. The good news is that every time we've met for the first time for you, we've been stuck in here longer. The first first time was maybe five minutes. Last time was most of a day. So we've got a bit of freedom to work."

"If that's the good news, keep the bad to yourself."

"Yeah, that's what you always say."

"There is bad news?" Oh great, he's fucking laughing.

"Yeah, and this is the point in things where you usually tell me to keep it to myself anyway. But then a few weeks later, you tell me I should have told you now. Which do you prefer?"

"How the fuck should I know!?"

"You're the nurse and healer, I'm just an asshole with some guns and a dubious relationship with time."

"Give me the bad news then."

"Huh. Only the second time you made that choice. That's what I like about you, Kerry, you surprise me. Well, that and your sunny disposition."

"Shut the fuck up and tell me. Asshole."

"At some point, our first meeting will fry your brain completely. We've only got maybe two or three tries left. Worse, chances are high that it'll take you dumping all of it onto someone at once for you to get rid of it if you do manage to fix it before then. So you'll have to fry someone that may or may not deserve it because you get less and less able to function every time it happens. Last time, you could barely walk once we woke up. And I haven't looped back before this meeting since the first one, and I should have. So it looks like I can't prevent this event at all."

"Any suggestions as to who?"

"Yeah. After the prime timeline became screwed, I encouraged a little proactive pruning of the worst enemies. We've got Nuke locked down and drugged to the gills down in the security unit. He kept causing a major waste of resources right before the Kitain show up."

"I have no clue what the Kitain are, and I don't care. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! Fine. Let's do this. Did I give you any idea about how I'm supposed to go about it?"

"Yeah. It's like waking up a catatonic patient, only there's six patients to do at once."

"Great. I fucking hate ---"

"Yeah, I know, you hate the mental shit. For what it's worth, John, the doctor that Max has help us, has some really good drugs available. Plus the DoD has some crazy strong opiate analogs with vastly lowered overdose risk. So you'll be able to take a nice vacation if we both survive."

"Okay. I need you to stay quiet, stay still, and don't fight what I'm doing. Not that you could stop it, but any time I've done this mental shit and the patient fought, it hurt me and them a lot. So, lay down."

Good. He follows orders. "I'm going to be touching you a lot. I don't really have to touch to use the power, but it makes it easier on both of us."

Let's see what I can do. Six of him. He's not vibrating, it's the other minds switching in and out of control. Hell, this entire conversation was with all of them. Go deep? Not the most useful advice there, future Kerry. Snag this version. Hold it. Fuck! It's slippery! Damn it, lost it. Okay, next one, try again. Shit! Shit* I got it! Fuck yes! Damn thing is like finger fucking a bag of razors. Okay, okay, pull it in, get it settled.

Next one. I think I can do this. Shit, it's bloody! Real blood or symbolic? Both? Both. Fine, pull the injury out first. Patch up the throat. Yes! Fucking A right! That got it smoothed out, bundle it right next to the first, tuck them both in, align them with me. Next one looks in better shape. I think I got this! I think I can fix it!

---

"Max! Max, The Doctor's waking up!"

Thanks be! I needed some good news! "On my way Mandy."

This is part one of two or three. Not certain exactly. Also not certain when I'll get the next bits typed up, I've had a crazy month, and it kept me from even getting this much down until now. But I know where it's going, and I know how this part will end, so it's just a matter of needing some time without chaos to get it written.

---

---

The new guy was sprawled on the sofa in the lounge. Track marks all over, whipcord lean, ragged and looking like he was on the nod. Hellion jerked his head towards my office, so I followed.

I sat in my chair, and he plopped into the one opposite, "Where the hell did you find him Max?"

"Manhattan."

"In a dumpster?"

I snorted, "He's not as trashed as he looks. I mean, he sort of is. But he's what we need. He's what Eternus needs, to be more specific."

"We can all use help. The guy is a junkie though. And from the looks of things has every disease known to man. Herpes for sure, that line of cold sores is pretty bad."

"Yeah, well, that's his thing. He's a healer. Just an empathic one. He heals by absorbing what's wrong. Then he dumps it onto a target as needed. But he has trouble justifying dumping some things, so they linger until he finds somewhere, something that's acceptable to him. He's been through hell."

"Can he really help? Is what's wrong with Don an illness?"

"That's what we're going to find out. He's on his way up."

"I asked him if he knew what was wrong last night. He couldn't answer. Kept stuttering and shaking. Evelyn was wrecked, just crying non stop. Me and Mandy had to take her home, she couldn't take seeing him like that."

"He hasn't really been right since that thing with Finale. He said he thinks it has something to do with some kind of time echo or feedback. At least, that's what I think he said. He was shaking too damn hard to be sure. I think it gets worse every time he loops back, and it's terrifying to think that he's looping that much, and coming back in increments of days or even hours from our perspective. I couldn't get him to say if we've called The Doctor in before, if this was something new enough to matter."

"He wouldn't say?"

"Couldn't."

"Fuck."

"My thoughts exactly. I've been trying to find reliable psychics and time manipulators, but they're rare to begin with, and the ones I have tracked down nope out on me as soon as I get close."

"What the fuck? Have they said why?"

"One lady did. No idea if the reason is the same for all of them, but she said my soul was screaming so loud it was like razors in her mind. Then she passed out."

"Jesus fucking christ, Max. What the fuck is that? Your soul is screaming?!"

"No clue, man, no clue. But it ain't good."

"Fuck. Is my soul screaming?"

"I'm not a psychic."

"It was a horror filled rhetorical."

"Oh. I suspect we know the answer though. Shame your name isn't because of supernatural stuff. Maybe that would help."

"I do know a guy. Used to be an enemy of sorts, back when I was working solo in Atlanta. Controls spirits and shit. Used to summon demons and devils to throw at me. No idea if they were really supernatural, or if he's just got a weird power, he plays mysterious. But he claims to be a master sorcerer at least. I can call him, see if he'll come up here."

"Do that. Even if he can't help with this, never hurts to keep connections. We could use someone that's good with the woowoo crap."

"I'll go call him."

---

Mike hadn't been gone five minutes when I heard Delmont yell for help. I ran back into the lounge to see him carrying Don in from the stairwell. Don was having a seizure.

"Doctor! Wake the fuck up!"

He woke and snapped into motion, "I'm not a fucking doctor. Lay him down, big guy, then go into the other room, both of you."

"I'm not leaving him!"

"Look, General, my shit gets twitchy and goes off sometimes. You don't want to be close if it does. Unless you fucking enjoy tertiary syphilis?"

Delmont gagged and ran. I retreated with more dignity. And stayed in the doorway. The Doctor knelt beside the couch he had just abandoned and laid his hands on the sides of Don's head. That's when the screaming started. Him and Don both. I couldn't see anything happening; whatever he does isn't flashy.

They both screamed for about five minutes. Enough time for everyone to show up armed for bear, powers at the ready. Then they both passed out. I moved to check on them. Pulses slightly elevated, but dropping. Breathing fine. The seizure Don was in had stopped, but the new guy was twitching a good bit. I waved the team in and got both of them moved into beds down the hall, hooked up the monitoring gear and waited and called you.

"I told you The Doctor could pull off miracles. Back before he got addicted the first time, his patients had absurdly high recovery rates. He was an oncology nurse. People on death's door going into remission entirely, when they shouldn't have lasted another week. When he'd do ED shifts, it was even more obvious, if you knew what to look for.

But he was sucking all of it up. It can't kill him. But he was building up the symptoms and started stealing opiates to cope. I lost track of him after he got fired. He's never told me what happened, but somewhere between then and the next summer, he figured out what was going on, started taking on some local gangs. They'd end up in my hospital, wracked with withdrawals, cancer of the everything, advanced Alzheimer's, all kinds of hell. And they'd say there was this junkie that did it to them."

"That's great and all, but it doesn't help me figure out what to do now?"

"I'm telling you that because I don't either. After I reconnected with Kerry, he didn't really explain much. But other than needing a nap after he does a ton of using his power, he's never had any kind of reaction like this that I've seen. All I can do is monitor them and provide supportive care. If they haven't come to in another hour or so, we'll have to get them to a hospital and keep them going until they do wake up. If they do."

"I can get supplies, equipment."

"I'd want an EEG for sure."

"Let me make a call. The DoD can make things happen fast."

---

"Well?"

"This is not normal."

"How bad is it, John?"

"I'm not sure. I'm not even sure it is bad. But it isn't normal."

"Am I going to have to beg here?"

"Sorry. Sorry. Look at both of them and see if you can see what I'm seeing."

"They look the same. Bunch of squiggly lines. You're the one that went to medical school, not me."

"They do look the same. Exactly the same, except in one section. And they're both abnormal overall. These squiggles? Nobody has matching ones. They'll be similar enough, sure, but these are perfectly synced other than the prefrontal cortex. But even there, there's a high degree of similarity beyond what it should be. But weirder is that there's wave forms that shouldn't be present at the same time."

"What does that mean?"

"It looks like they're awake and asleep. Alpha, beta, and delta waves going at the same time. But there's parts, here and here, that are what you see when someone blinks. But they aren't blinking. Their eyes aren't moving at all."

"John, come on man, get to the point!"

"Fuck you Max, that is the point! You always have been an impatient little asshole."

"This isn't the time for sibling squabbles. I'm sorry I care about my friend and the guy I asked to help him. Now could you please give me something I can work with here?"

"Sorry. Truth is I'm not sure what the hell is going on. I'm not a neurologist, Max. Can I show these to one?"

"Yeah, I think so. I know Don is covered under our charter, and Kerry should be covered under exigent circumstances. I'll take the heat if he tries to sue."

"That's not very reassuring."

"Best I can do. Can't you tell me anything? If this isn't something medical, I need to be moving to find someone with the right power or skill set. They're my responsibility."

"It fucking looks like their brains are connected. That they're connected and communicating. They're awake and asleep, showing signs of the kind of activity you get while talking to someone. I don't know how their powers work. I'm an orthopedic surgeon Max, this is out of scope for me. I think it's out of scope for anyone."

"You find a neurologist then. I'll try and find someone that... Shit. I don't even know what we'll need. Mind readers?"

"Your guess is better than mine."

This is a weird one. It didn't end how I thought it would. And it isn't what I planned at all. So, it may or may not stand as part of whatever the hell this story is turning into. I dunno, but the imagery in my head while it was being written were... intense. So I had to roll with it.

---

"I'm telling you, I'm going to kill the bitch."

"Yeah, right. People have been trying to nail him for years, and he keeps dancing right out of it. Dude is untouchable. Hell, he'll fuck your shit up and not even be there when a fight starts. He's some kind of psychic or something."

"No way. Rebound has gone up against him, and nothing psy came off Eternus at all. If he's anything like that, it's passive, just seeing the future or something because he never pings at all, not to anyone.

"Fine, then how are you going to take him out? You're good in a scrap, and probably a better shot than he is, but you got nothing nobody else has thrown at them."

"I've been thinking about this shit. Whatever he does, he knows what you're gong to do before you do it. I been doing some intensive meditation shit. No-mind. Flow state. If I don't know what I'm going to do next, how can he?. Plus, I got me some Boost hidden in my cheek."

"You really are a fucking idiot. Boost mutates you permanent, and you can't predict ... Oh. I see what you're getting at. Won't work, but I don't think anyone has tried it yet. Not during a fight with him."

"Then how do you know it won't work, asshole?"

"Watch how you speak to me, or you might miss your own finale, Finale."

"Don't try to be witty, you don't have the brain for it. Besides, you called me an idiot first. Answer me. Why do you think it won't work?"

"Because he's fucking Eternus. He just fucking shows up, loaded with shit in his guns that is exactly what works. I think that's his power, no matter what he said on TV. He creates ammo. The rest is just hyper reflexes, or some kind of psychic shit, or maybe he slows time, I don't fucking know. But nobody can just have the exact perfect ammo for everything without a power making it."

"You think small, Titan."

"Har, fucking, har. Fine. Fifty bucks says you not only fail, but you spend the weekend recovering from bullet wounds in the fed lockup."

"You're on!"

---

Jesus fucking christ, I'm gonna be out fifty bucks. He's fucking walking, and I can't hit him. Time for the fucking Boost.

Oh damn. Oh, fuck me! Hell fucking yes! Fucker's standing still now!

Ow! It's like hitting a rock! Is time frozen? Shit yeah, the dust is just hanging.

Okay, okay, breathe into it. Only have one dose, don't waste it. Some kind of time freezing shit. Can't hurt him directly, let's set some shit up. Throw a rock, see what happens.

"What the fuck did you just do, Finale?"

What the fuck?! He's loose! Hit him! Holy fuck! He's down! I knocked Eternus the fuck out!

"That's right, motherfucker, I'm your finale this time!"

Ow! The fuck?!

"When did you get time powers Finale?"

There's two of him! Is that how he does his shit? Multiples?

"That's for you to die trying to figure out." Stab the fucker in the throat! Yeah! Bleed and die, bitch!

Aaaaaahhhhrrrgghhhhh!"

"You stabbed me in the throat you cheap fuck. That's your kidney stabbed. You keep fucking with me, I'm cutting your balls off before I kill you. Now, how the fuck are you doing this?"

Three of him! No! He's a time fucker! That's how he does his shit, he's a time fucker! Oh fuck, are people gonna shit bricks when I tell them about this!

"Fuck you Eternus, cheap ass time fucker. Ima kill your ass a dozen times before this shit runs out!" Cut the bitch! Ha! Three down! Finale for the motherfucking...

"Gaaaaghhh! my fucking balls! Ah, you fuck, you stabbed my fucking balls!"

"I told you. Now, you wanna tell me how the fuck you're doing this? You never showed this kind of power before. Low grade pyrotechnics, with the occasional flash of bigger bangs. Someone graft powers onto you?"

Fuck this asshole! Cut his fucking balls...

"My ass! You stabbed me in the asshole!" Two of him alive? What the fuck is this guy?

"Yeah, Finale, you really need to stop trying to kill us and answer the fucking question."

"I'll take that."

My knife! Three? Fuck! Four of him?!

"Okay, okay, it was Boost! Just stop stabbing me!"

"Are you fucking stupid? Do you know what Boost does to your genes? The cancer rate from a single use is worse than fifty years of smoking."

"What he said. Well, what I said. You're a moron Finale, but I never thought you were that stupid."

"Only way I could think to get you." Jesus, how many of him are there? They keep popping in!

"Well, you sure fucked up. Nobody else with time powers ever caused this. I think you're causing a loop that's making timelines fracture. Every me that would have been in your little bubble depending on how I died spawning in."

"That's what you do? You fucking die and come back?"

"Close enough. The real problem is what happens when your bubble ends. If it ends. You're bleeding, so some degree of time is passing for you. When the boost wears off you better fucking hope there's only one of me left."

"What now?"

"Well, Finale, the only reason you aren't dead already is that I, we, don't know what will happen if we kill you."

The fucker's looking around at himselves and they're all nodding. I am so fucked. Oh shit. They're all staring at me. What did they think of?

"Ah, Eternus, don't do anything crazy man. I'll go quiet, no more fighting, nothing. You can cuff me with a power dampener, it's cool man, I'm done."

"Yeah, Finale, you are. You know I can't let you live. You assholes seeing that interview was bad enough. No way can I let this get out."

"I won't say nothing man, nothing! Ever! I swear! Aaaaaarrrrrggghhhggglllgllugle..."

"No, you won't."

POP

---

"What the hell was that, Eternus?"

"General?"

"That storm around you and Finale. What the hell was that?"

"Not here. I'll explain later. We're still reeling, and we don't want anyone to hear."

"We? Who's we?"

"Me. We think it'll pass."

Since the concept sprang from a prompt, I figured posting it here made the most sense. For anyone that's coming across this fresh, https://lemmy.world/comment/16264684 is the first story.

---

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist left

BLAM

Okay. Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner right knee.

BLAM

Fucking hell. Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner left knee.

BLAM

This fucker needs to go down! Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's gonna need evac if I don't want to deal with fucking paperwork when he dies. Don't fucking care right now. Move Don, move!

Okay, okay, what's next? Shit, Damage is in trouble.

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta fucking get to Damage and not fucking die again. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee oughta do it. Shrike is down, Damage has this, move, Don, move! Find the fucker. Find the fucker.

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, Damage has this, move, Don, move! Find the fucker. Find the fucker. Stay in cover this time. Last shot came from somewhere over there. Fuck. Breathe. Too much fucking dust.

BLAM

What the fuck!? They shot Damage! Dammit all to hell. Looked like focused energy though. Doesn't fucking matter, move!

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod, faster this time, and to the right.

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod, faster this time, and to the left. Right on! Scramble motherfucker, scramble, over the car befo

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod, faster this time, and to the left. Right on! Scramble motherfucker, scramble, under the SUV, stop, watch this time. Okay, okay, creep out

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod. Out , and to the left. Right on! Scramble motherfucker, scramble, stay under the big piece of metal for a sec. Had to have come from the Gant building, only thing still standing with an angle to see that spot. Test it, watch careful, hand out first, move slow.

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod. Out , and to the left. Right on! Scramble motherfucker, scramble, stay under the big piece of metal for a sec. Path to the Gant building is rough. No way to keep cover. Fucking blast doesn't have a tell. Thus is gonna fucking suck. Okay, dash to the statue.

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod. Out , and to the left. Right on! Scramble motherfucker, scramble, stay under the big piece of metal for a sec. This fucking sucks . Okay, dash to the statue, roll left behind it. Yes! Fuuuck, that's a long run. This is gonna suck worse. One path at a time, mix in rolls and jumps.

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod. Out , and to the left. Right on! Scramble motherfucker, scramble, stay under the big piece of metal for a sec. This fucking sucks . Okay, dash to the statue, roll left behind it.

Two steps right, roll left

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod. Out , and to the left. Right on! Scramble motherfucker, scramble, stay under the big piece of metal for a sec. This fucking sucks . Okay, dash to the statue, roll left behind it.

Two steps right, roll right, up and roll back left

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod. Out , and to the left. Right on! Scramble motherfucker, scramble, stay under the big piece of metal for a sec. This fucking sucks . Okay, dash to the statue, roll left behind it.

Two steps right, roll right, duck, forward roll, call for cov

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod. Out , and to the left. Right on! Scramble motherfucker, scramble, stay under the big piece of metal for a sec. This fucking sucks . Okay, dash to the statue, roll left behind it.

Two steps right, roll right, duck, twist right, dive then call for covering fi

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, twist right,

BLAM

What the fuck! Dammit, what the fuck?! Fucked the order, must have fucked the order. Fucking bullshit not able to reset closer. What the fuck worked? Was it a duck and roll? Duck and twist? This fucking sucks. Gotta get the General to ready covering fire anyway

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll left

BLAM

BLAM

BLAM

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod. Out , and to the left. Right on! Scramble motherfucker, scramble, stay under the big piece of metal for a sec. This fucking sucks . Okay, dash to the statue, roll left behind it.

Two steps right, roll right, duck, forward roll, call for covering fire, run Don, run!

There, fucking made it! Okay, one of Max's dupes should be here... now! Yes! Fuck, I hate watching my own ass when I run.

BLAM

Gotcha motherfucker! Duped by a dupe! Third floor. Just gotta bring a rifle next time and we got this fucker. Okay, step out and take the hit

BLAM

Two steps right. Duck, roll, twist right, shoot Scanner center of mass. Yes! Fucker's down again. Gotta handle Shrike. Stay low, stay fucking low.

Kick to the back of the knee. Shrike is down, pull Damage with me behind the fence. "Stay put for now". Good, got the nod. Out , and to the left. Right on! Scramble motherfucker, scramble, stay under the big piece of metal for a sec. This fucking sucks . Okay, dash to the statue, roll left behind it.

Two steps right, roll right, duck, forward roll, call for covering fire, run Don, run!

There, fucking made it! Okay, the dupe should be here... now! Yes! Fuck, I still hate watching my own ass when I run.

CRACK

---

"Jesus Eternus, did you have to make it a head shot?"

"Fuck off Jamie. You were too busy flirting with Razor, and everyone else had taken hits from whoever it was and gone down."

Blood was dripping from a few dozen slashes, one ball was hanging from a hole in his shorts and had a cut on it too. The look on his face was bloodier, standing there in the transport waiting for Switch to bring us home.

"Fuck you Don! You've gotten fucking trigger happy ever since the interview. Razor tried to fucking castrate me, and she's still alive."

"No, fuck you Jamie. Twenty five times I got my brain splattered by that fucking blast. He killed Damage once. The cunts have ramped up because I had to fucking go public with some of what I do. They go harder, I end up in a fucking corner."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Fuck! We're supposed to be heroes, not executioners."

"No fucking shit! You think I signed on to be a damn killer? Do you?"

"No, Don, I know you didn't. And I know there's shit you can't tell us. I know there's a big fucking deal coming and you're scattered as Damage's shit after taco night. But maybe you're taking the easy way out more often because of that."

"Hey, I hosed the bathroom down that time. Not my fault the hot sauce hit me hard."

"Sorry Del, was just trying to dial things back a little."

"Sokay Jamie, I get it. Maybe the jerk has a point though, Don. Are you maybe just taking the fastest way to a win instead of making the win as low impact as possible?"

Fuck. Was I?

"No. I don't think so. I mean, even if I was, how many times do I have to die or get mangled before it's okay to use lethal force? If I was a fucking cop, that would be a clean shoot. Do any of you really think I should be replaying things an extra dozen times trying to find a non lethal shot?

Fuck me, almost half of the repeats this time were because I couldn't keep track. Got my paths confused and had to rebuild the pattern again. Maybe I go back now and get even more turned around. Maybe I fuck up bad enough one of you is dead and I can't sort it out, so you stay dead, all for the sake of trying not to kill that fuckknuckle.

Do any of you want me to do that?"

Jamie had the decency to look me in the eye when he shook his head, "Nah, Don, nobody wants that. But I'm fucking worried about you. You've let enough slip that we've figured out some things. You're pushing too hard. You'll fucking snap, man."

"We? What the fuck? Is there an 'Eternus is losing it' coffee klatch now?"

"Hey man, it ain't like that" Del's rumble cut in.

"Then what's it like?"

"It's like watching your brother implode. Your hands shake a lot now. When we're on shift at base, you talk some in your sleep. You slip up and mumble things during briefings. It was Lightstorm figured out you're looping more than a day, that you're cycling back years from something big you can't tell us about. Or can you? Have you tried?"

Fuck. Didn't know it was that bad.

"Yeah, I've tried. It made too many milestones change, I couldn't keep the main timeline where we all survive to the, ah big shitshow on track. Only tell the people that I can't avoid telling, and even that changed shit. Like today, that cunt sniping us, I've never seen before. The primary line? I can't manage to get things back to that. Gave up five repeats ago."

Jamie started crying, "How many? Jesus fucking christ Don, how many times have you looped back from the big thing?"

"I dunno for sure. I've lost track. Max asks something similar most times, after I start the plan to get Generator with us. I try and figure it out when he does. A few hundred I think. Maybe more. Thousands of years. Most of the time, I don't have to start all the way over, makes it harder to keep track.

And Jamie?"

"Yeah Don?"

"Put your nut back in your shorts, it's distracting."

"Fuck you man, fuck you"

At least it got everyone laughing and off my ass for a while.