Chapter 19: Hideout

Chapter 19:
Hideout

 

“SORRY TO KEEP you waiting!” Welcy came running up, hand waving excitedly in the air, shortly after Gadhio arrived at the Central District park.

She’d left the guild early in the morning to research an issue Gadhio asked her to look into. He obviously couldn’t let her go alone when it was still dark out, so he sent a few adventurers along to watch her back.

“Sorry for the unreasonable request,” said Gadhio.

“Think nothing of it. Especially not considering the times we’re in. Anyway, I fooooound it.” She pulled out an old newspaper.

Taking a quick glance, he could tell that it wasn’t published by her employer.

“So a copy does exist… Good work. I’ll pay you whatever you ask when this is over.”

“Honestly, it’s not money I’m after. I’ve got a contract in my back pocket that I’d like your operation to sign. But we’ll put that all aside for the moment. You see, making sure that we leave behind a correct and accurate history of the capital is a hobby of my brother’s; he built a storage unit for all his newspapers and books. Which, well, if the church ever gets its mitts on you, we didn’t have this conversation.”

Gadhio picked up what she was laying down. The church’s work with Origin cores was far from the only shady business they were conducting.

“What do you plan to do with the dirt I turned up on Mother, anyway?”

The front page of the newspaper in Gadhio’s hands read: “Massive Inferno Lights Up Central District.”

“His real name is Mich Smithee, though he goes by Mother and dresses the part. I’ve been thinking that he may have some sort of complex about his own mother.”

“His research involves children, after all. It would explain why he makes them call him Mother. So, what, is he trying ro make his own twisted family?”

Mother raised Nekt and the others to depend on him, using their dependence to keep them on a short leash.

“It’s just a guess, but yes, that’s what I think. And now Mother has been abandoned by the church, left with his back against the wall. Try as he might to take it in stride, I’m certain it’s had an effect on his psychological state.”

Welcy nodded with great interest at this revelation.

“So, you think that Mother will return here. But how’d you know where to look? You gave me all these spots in the Central, West, and East districts to check out. Did you already know where Mother’s home was?”

As she spoke, the two turned toward a point nearby.

“I figured being wrong would carry dire consequences. I had to know for sure.”

“Would you mind telling me how you reached your conclusion then?”

“It struck me while I was listening to Flum yesterday.”

Flum had shared her theory about Mute being the author of the letters with the others.

“Humans are immensely complex creatures. While Mute was going about proving her worth as a weapon by slaughtering people throughout the city, she also had a more human side that compelled her to write these letters to get someone to put a stop to her madness. And then there was the matter of her taking care of Cyrill.”

“What does that have to do with this?”

“Those were probably her own personal desires. But her desire to serve Mother took priority over all that.”

“I…guess? It looks like they’re just running rampant to me.”

“With the clock ticking down, I think the Children all realized that they still needed to carry out their role of serving Mother. That made me think to mark all the locations they attacked on a map.”

“And the places you wanted me to check were the only ones left unscathed.”

In other words, the Children were doing whatever they could to keep attention off of Mother. No one had noticed until now because of the sheer scale of the diversion. In fact, the Children might not even know what they were doing, even as they fought to their deaths.

“Susannah Smithee, the woman who gave birth to the person known as Mother, died in a fire that consumed the surrounding neighborhood,” said Welcy. “The capital used the emptied lots to build warehouses and…whoa?!”

The ground shook forcefully beneath them; Welcy struggled to maintain her balance. The tremor felt like it came from the East District. Welcy looked over in time to witness an iceberg crash into the ground, shattering to pieces.

“Was that Eterna?”

“Looks like it. She’s really going all out.”

Looking closer, Welcy caught a glimpse of a fleshy tide scrambling up what was left of the berg, completely covering it in seconds. She squinted to get a better look.

“It’s probably better if you don’t watch.” Gadhio tried to put a lid on her curiosity. “You’ll never be able to see babies the same way again.”

“Huh? You mean that’s…”

Realizing what the squirming creatures were, Welcy decided it best to avert her eyes—and keep them averted for good, if possible.

“S-so anyway, there’s usually a surprising amount of foot traffic for this part of town when you consider that it’s mostly storage.”

That was, of course, until the entire capital had become a ghost town the night before. It had at one time been brimming with activity.

“That made it all the easier for the usually conspicuous Mother to hide in plain sight.”

“There have to be some warehouses around here that have been conveniently left vacant.”

“Vacant… Hey, what about the ones Shoppe Francois owned?!”

Shoppe Francois was the name of Satils Francois’ company, though it was shuttered shortly after Satils was killed in Sheol and Welcy’s newspaper ran her exposé on her joint illicit drug trade operation with the church.

“Don’t tell me you figured that out already, too. Wow, Gadhio, I’m impressed. So I guess we should just split up, and…”

“No, I’m going alone from here. Go find someplace safe to hide and sit tight,” Gadhio instructed Welcy before they entered the warehouse district proper.

“Okay, so maybe I’m no use in a fight, but I’ve got guts of steel and eagle eyes. You’d take ages to turn Mother up on your own.”

“Assuming Mother’s hiding out here, the last of the Children is going to be coming for me. I can’t worry about protecting you if I need to focus on battling Fwiss.”

“Aah…I…I guess I understand. I hate to lose out on a scoop at the last moment, but that’s life. Corpses don’t get much out of a byline.” Welcy shrugged and turned back, headed for the presses where her coworkers waited.

 

***

 

Gadhio stood before a Shoppe Francois warehouse.

He turned slowly, calling out into the shadow of a neighboring building. “Don’t you think it’s about time that you showed yourself, Nekt?”

A young figure stepped out of the shadows with a peeved expression on her face.

“Hmph, so you noticed me?”

“You really overestimate how stealthy you are. You should probably talk to Linus and ask him for some help.”

“Eww, that playboy? No thanks. So anyway, is this where Mother’s hiding?”

Another voice piped in before Gadhio had a chance to respond. “That’s right. That’s why I’m here.”

The green-haired boy walked confidently up to Gadhio.

“Mother decided that I would get to be the bodyguard and keep everyone away, no matter who they were.”

The look in Fwiss’s eyes betrayed his appetite for indiscriminate murder, regardless of the trespassers’ identities. Gadhio immediately drew his blade and took a fighting stance, though Nekt quickly jumped between them.

“Before you fight, please, just give me a chance to talk with Fwiss.”

“I don’t have anything to talk about with you. After our conversation yesterday, it’s clear that we’re not going to reach an understanding.”

“Listen, things have changed! Mute’s decided to get her Origin core replaced with a heart and become a normal human girl again!”

This was enough to finally shake Fwiss. So much so, in fact, that even the killing intent rolling off of him faded. He stayed silent for a long moment as he pondered this new revelation.

“Luke will probably refuse in the beginning too, but I’m sure he’ll change his mind once he hears about Mute. That leaves just you, Fwiss. All you have to do is be brave enough to want to live!”

Nekt pressed her point home…only to watch Fwiss’s expression change. Though the murderous gaze was now gone, his demeanor could hardly be described as positive.

Gadhio still wasn’t willing to make the first strike, but he tensed his legs, preparing to move at a moment’s notice.

“Ya know, Nekt, I’ve been thinking ever since our encounter yesterday.” Fwiss spoke slowly, deliberately, almost like a parent talking down to their child. “That future you preach on about… Mother’s nowhere in it. Why is that, huh?”

The difference in their love for Mother formed a gulf between the two of them that could not be crossed.

After being lied to about her gender her whole life, Nekt had decided to part ways from Mother. But Fwiss still loved and needed him, and he couldn’t imagine a life without that presence.

“Mother raised us, you know. Mother’s more important than anything else in this world.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Fwiss. Mother stole our futures—even our real parents from us!”

“If it weren’t for Mother, we wouldn’t have been born at all.”

“No, you don’t get it! If it weren’t for Mother, for the church, we would have lived real, fulfilling lives!”

“What does that even mean? That you have to be normal to be happy? So you think that we’re poor, miserable little wretches then? No, Nekt. You’re the one who’s got it all backwards. Being here, dedicating my life to protecting Mother, is the happiest I’ve ever been.”

“That’s only because we were robbed of the right to learn that there are so many other wonderful ways we could live!”

Fwiss raised an Origin core up into the air, with a look of pure, unimpeded joy on his face. “I don’t know any of that stuff. I can only choose what I already know is best for me!”

He brought the crystal close to his chest.

I’m not fast enough to stop him in time! thought Nekt.

It was a moot point: Gadhio already made the first move. His black blade whirled through the air and lopped Fwiss’s hand clean off. With Fwiss stunned, Nekt immediately used her Connection ability to teleport behind him, kick his legs out from under him, and wrap her arms tightly around him as she forced him to the ground.

“If that’s all you know, then we’ll just have to go find this new kind of happiness together! I know all of us Children have a shot at it, and I need us all together if we’re going to find it!”

Were their positions reversed, this probably would have been enough to put a stop to Nekt’s rampage. But Fwiss just chuckled, a demented grin forming on his lips.

“Nekt, run!!”

“Too late. Distortion!”

“Hah?! Connection!”

Fwiss was correct: Nekt was too late, if only barely.

Vwwwooooooo!

Nekt looked toward the unfamiliar noise to see an indistinct shape with an ominous marble pattern to it, twisting and contorting…until it sucked in her arm, ripping it from her body. Her Connection ability took her away from there a fraction of a second later, but she was horrified to find that part of her waist, leg, and even face had been shredded in addition to her arm, almost as if she had been gnawed on by an army of rats.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!”

Gadhio wasted no time in launching a Prana Shaker at Fwiss, which he blocked with a volley of Distortion blasts.

“Was Fwiss always this powerful?”

Blood dripped from Nekt’s injuries before spirals began to form on her skin and close the wounds. Each time one of the spirals appeared, she could faintly hear Papa…no, Origin’s voice.

“No way… It can’t be.”

In their normal form, the Spiral Children were just slightly inferior to Gadhio and the other heroes in terms of their fighting ability. Additionally, while Fwiss’s Distortion ability allowed him to fight in a far more varied and dynamic way than Luke’s Rotation, it was also weaker than the latter.

But what Nekt saw now flew in the face of everything she knew: Fwiss blocked all of Gadhio’s frenetic strikes with a single hand.

“Hmm. Things aren’t exactly going like I planned. I was sure I would have killed you already, Nekt.”

“You really have no intention of coming with me, do you, Fwiss?”

“Of course not. I’m so close to Mother now, and even Papa talks to me a lot! I’m not lonely at all. I can say with absolute certainty this is the happiest I’ve ever been!” Fwiss threw out both his arms and spun in a circle, laughing maniacally.

“That happiness is one of Mother’s lies!”

“Give it up, Nekt. You’re wasting your breath.”

“But…!”

“If he were still sane, I’d push along with you, but Fwiss is beyond reason now.”

“What do you mean?”

“You also have a core, don’t you? If you just settle down and focus on him, you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Nekt did as she was told and focused her attention on her manic brother.

What she saw caused her eyes to go wide with shock.

“No…no way… Of all the stupid things…”

Nekt’s lower lip trembled. It took a few moments before she could finally form the words.

“Fwiss…you already have two cores??”

Of all the Children, Fwiss was more dependent on Mother and more devoted to Origin than any of the rest. He was already well on a different path from even Mute and Luke.

In some ways, he was the culmination of the second-generation project.

“So you finally figured it out, huh? Well, let me teach you what real happiness is all about!”

A bundle of red, pulsing muscle tissue shot from the stump at the end of Fwiss’s right arm. Moments later, it knotted into a new hand—which Fwiss wasted no time in using to create another distortion field.