Chapter 23: Reminiscence

Chapter 23:
Reminiscence

 

LATE INTO THE NIGHT, Leitch heard the voices of people bustling about in the commons of the village where he sought refuge. They were staring at the capital, terror plain on their faces.

Leitch stood with his arm around his wife, Foiey, and gazed through the window in terror.

“Oh, Leitch…do you think Welcy’s okay??”

“I don’t know… I can’t even say for sure what’s happening, but I hope that Flum and the others are all right.”

A massive infant took up the space where the capital once stood. It had grown up right out of the earth, and its immense stomach lay draped unceremoniously over much of the city.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuugh!!” Though low and deep, the beast’s cry sounded just like that of a child fresh from the womb.

 

***

 

The cathedral where the church knights were based was already consumed by Mother’s body, but the soldiers themselves didn’t seem to be suffering from the same deranged state that overcame Flum and her comrades. They, like the castle itself, were protected by an Origin core.

“Ya know, Commander, I really don’t think it’s safe to be standing around here.” Rischel stepped out onto the balcony, looking over at Huyghe as the commander surveyed the city. Huyghe was too focused on the sight before him to respond.

Jack spoke up from the commander’s side. “How often do you get the chance to see Origin’s power on parade like this? From a front row seat, no less.”

Bart fought back the urge to vomit. “Is it really that interesting? Maybe he’s watching something else.”

“Hah, that’s just a question of personal taste. I think it’s quite beautiful.”

“Gah, it smells so awful, I…blaaaaugh!”

“You’ve got some disturbed tastes, Jack.”

Bart heaved again, his mouth stained with vomit.

Rischel knelt next to him. “You really don’t need to be here if you’re gonna keep getting sick like that.”

“I only came because I heard that…all the lieutenant commanders were summoned for a meeting. I couldn’t be the only one to miss it. Gluuuuugh!”

“This isn’t a meeting, ya know. We just came to join the commander. Your presence is hardly required.”

“Sorry,” said Jack, “that was my fault. I called Bart here so I could share this wonderful sight with him, but I guess he can’t quite appreciate the beauty.”

Rischel rolled her eyes. “Jaaaaack. You know Grandpa here can’t handle that.”

“I told you, don’t call me…blaaaaaugh!”

Bart felt as if he were living in a nightmare, enveloped by the smell of sick and visions from hell.

As they watched, one after another, the cocoons covering the city broke open and gave birth.

 

***

 

Back at the castle, another group of people were watching the same sight unfold from their own balcony: Echidna, the head of the Chimera project, and her assistant, Werner.

“I have to admit,” said Echidna, “I had my doubts about the Children project’s ability to ramp up production, but I guess they had a plan.”

“This goes beyond mass production… This is something else entirely.”

“Well, it’s a plant, after all. After swallowing the city whole, it turned all the remaining survivors into weapons. When you look at it that way, it’s a highly efficient way of doing things. Far better than the Necromancy project.”

“Better? Huh.” They were surrounded by a broken hellscape, but apparently, Echidna didn’t quite see it that way.

“You know, if they’d just shown this complete version to the cardinals sooner…”

“Then they would’ve given their official endorsement to Children and not Chimeras?”

Echidna’s lips twisted up into a mix of a sneer and a smile. She leaned in close to Werner before cackling in his face.

“Oh, is that what you really think, Werner? That my sweet, adorable Chimeras are somehow inferior to these tasteless, miserable Children??”

Honestly, thought Werner, I don’t see much of a difference in that regard…

He fought the urge to speak his thoughts aloud, knowing that one wrong step could leave him on a gurney borne for the operating theater.

Werner spread out his arms in a gesture of peace. “Hey, hey, no one ever said that the Chimeras were anything less than the best creatures out there.”

“Hmm, that’s right. My Chimeras are great, powerful, and adorable to boot! It has been decided by divine providence, by fate itself! I will see to it that the completed fourth-generation Children and that super-powered child of the second generation are all destroyed!”

The red fibers surrounding Nekt transformed freely from razor-edged whirlwinds to blades to battering fists as she fought off the onslaught of Mother’s new Children and Mother’s tendrils. Echidna sat back in her chair, crossed her legs, and watched the battle play out.

 

***

 

Human life, at its core, is about exerting your will over others. Be it love, affection, or sexual desire…pursuing any of these is a constant battle of wills until someone caves in. The real winner, though, is whoever stands proudly and without shame at the top of the food chain.

“I am Mich Smithee.”

Wrong.

“I am Mich Smithee, but you can call me Mother.”

No, I’m Flum Apric…

“Mother. Mich. Mother. Mother. Mother.”

My…head. It feels like it’s…going to buuuuuuuuuuauaaaaaaaa!

As you can see, once someone has given up, their only other option is to acquiesce. If the loser is just going to sit around and cry for the remainder of their sad life, it’s far kinder to just wipe them out entirely. If Mich Smithee is the winner, then the other Mich Smithee may as well be the loser.

“Such is the life I’ve led…and so will you.”

It was trivial to change someone’s expression, just as Mute could do with her Sympathy, but that would do little more than substitute Mich Smithee with an α version of himself. If this α version became one of Mother’s children, then α would have to quit being α and instead become Mich Smithee if it wanted to become the best child it could be.

The red blood vessels pierced through the flesh and pulsed as they dug deeper. They began to pump, pushing “me” into the body.

“Why was I born? If only no one were looking, I’d kill you in an instant.”

I distantly recalled hearing my mother say such venomous words to me. Day in and day out, she worked hard as a whore on the outskirts of town just to put food on the table, but unfortunately, she just couldn’t scrape up enough to afford an abortion. What was truly odd, though, was that something in this whore’s moral code wouldn’t just let her throw her child away.

“I could have at least put you to work on the streets if you were a girl, but no one in this town would pay much for a night with a boy.”

Perhaps that was what kicked this all off.

Once, when I was around five years old, I dressed up in girls’ clothes and showed off in front of my mother when she was in a bad mood.

“Stop wearing my clothes like that, it’s disgusting! You want to be a whore like me? Then just be born as a girl next time around! Why the hell were you born as a boy, anyway?! And why did you have to look like me, you ugly piece of trash? I feel sick just looking at you. Die, diiiiiie!!!”

From that point forward, she started actually making concerted attempts to kill me.

She knew she was under scrutiny, so she did things like shove my head under the water in the bath until I was on the brink of death before she’d let up. As the torture continued, I started to just laugh it off entirely.

“No way, you have to be ill. I…no, stop it, don’t look at me! This is all your fault! Your fault, you hear me??”

As I grew older and my mother passed the prime of her whoring days, she caught some sort of sexually transmitted disease and sickened, growing even more emotionally unstable.

At the same time, both my mother and I grew quite thin. Was it sickness or just our empty pockets? Who can say?

“Hot, it’s too hot! Help…oh, Mich, sweetie, would you be a good boy and…help…stop it! You’re my child…aa…gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!!’”

And then that fateful day came. Flames erupted in our part of the Central District. Many of the hookers living in their cheap lodgings went up like matches with their tawdry homes. Mother had a hard time escaping the fire; her leg was hurt, and I—well, I splashed gasoline on her.

“You stupid son of a…! Gyaaugh! You’ve really done it now! You’re cursed, I tell you…cuuu…gaaa! Aaaaaaugh!”

I escaped with my life and came back later to find her corpse, where I finally had a chance to hold her like an affectionate child. I held her, brought my face close to hers, and whispered into her black, crisp ear.

“How did it feel to have all your flesh burn away?”

I’d seen her engage in fetish play countless times before. It must have been pure ecstasy for her to burn alive.

I leaned in, bit her ear off, and chewed. This was the first time I’d ever tasted human flesh.

But that was just the beginning. I wanted to give everything I had in the hopes that the world would finally understand why I became who I was.

It was warm and red, comforting and sickening all at once. This new womb colony.

Of course, when α became Mich Smithee, it attempted to suppress its identity. However, there was little a child could do in its mother’s womb other than kick her stomach as hard as possible. Perhaps a true mother would think it was cute? That’s why I was so gentle when I stroked my tentacles across them.

“I’m Mother. I’m Mich Smithee. I…I’m…I am…Mil…kit…right. I…I am…I. I’m Flum Apricot. And I won’t let you win!”

Aah, what a pain, that power within you.

There were good and bad sides to transforming α, of course, but ultimately, Papa was little more than the father here. And I was the mother. Mothers hold domain over all matters related to their children, and this was no place for Papa to intervene.

Come now, drink up. Yessss, drink up. Now become me.

“No…thanks. I…don’t give a damn…about your past!”

Now that’s not nice. And here I thought you’d understand me. You even saved Ink and let Mute and Luke go without putting the final nails in their coffins. We’re all murderers, and yet you reject me?

“No…no. You’re the one who’s hurt all these people, acting like a victim the whole time! I don’t care what your mother did. That has nothing to do with your absurd fetishes. That’s all on you! You ruined these children’s lives for your own amusement; you’ve killed people for fun! You’re just a sick bastard who has made countless people miserable for your own benefit!”

The children enjoyed themselves when they killed. We are alike, they and I.

“You’ve got no right to talk; you’re the ringleader of this circus! You gave them no other choice!”

How annoying. Why must you be so irritating? I’m Mother…your mother. You must never disobey your mother, you know. The same goes with Nekt. Disobeying your mother is very unchildlike. I guess I’ll just have to make you a child then.

The blood vessels spun as they drew closer and pierced the bone.

“Aaugh…aaah…agauu…gya!”

Oh, my, how adorable. The way that your body twitches around and drool trails out of your mouth. My, you’re just like a baby. I’m going deeper; I’ll make you even more adorable. The tips of the blood vessels will invade your brain and flush it out.

“Gahii…kii…hyuu…aa…aaa…aaa…wauh…wara…hi…gyi…gaaa!”

Well, Flum Apricot Mich Smithee? Well, Mich Smithee Flum Apricot?

…Well, Mich Smithee?

“Noooooo! No, no, noooo!! Aaaaaaaaaugh!!”

I pump it in even harder, in higher concentrations.

Say, can you feel it? Can you feel me? Me…me…me…

After my mother died, I cut my own throat to commit suicide, but the church saved me. I studied day in and day out in that church, which was how I encountered the Origin cores and came up with the plan for the Children. The first generation failed. So be it—she was trash anyway. I got over my pain and became even stronger for it. The second generation was much better than the first, but still a failure. I tried every experiment I could think of to raise the ideal children, but they all fell short. They were pathetic little wretches that got underfoot; I made them dependent upon me so I could use them as needed.

“What…are you talking about? Those children…th-they love you…like a real mother! Just like a real family! And yet this is how you…gyaugh!”

Well, if you still can’t understand me, I’ll just have to add some blood vessels, agitate your brain some more.

I wanted to be a mother. A mother. A real mother. So I continued my experiments. The third-generation Children were born in test tubes; they were closer than the second generation ever came to my ideal. But just when I was about to bring the tests to completion…the church demanded I cancel the Children program and destroyed my lab. But I refused to give in. All the setbacks, all my struggles—they only made me stronger. The fourth generation was so close to completion, so I embedded it into my own body and used my sacrificial pawns to buy more time. After all the trials I had been through, I finally, finally gave birth under my own power and became a mother.

“No…way! You’ve…accomplished…absolutely…nothing…!”

Hm. I guess I can see why Origin has treated you so differently. “It’s no use,” “it’s pointless.” With so many voices running through your head, I guess it makes sense that you just ignore me.

Or maybe Origin isn’t all that different from us humans? Papa is subservient to Mother, and since I’m Mother, that means that Origin shouldn’t be able to stop me.

Well, then. I guess I need to just dig deeper to make sure α is completely wiped out with Mich Smithee.

“Hyaguuuu!”

I’ll start by piercing her palms and feet, crucifixion-style.

“Aaaugh!”

Thighs. Side.

“Gya!! Ggggaaa!”

Cheeks. Forehead. Neck. Navel. Calf. Chest. Shoulder.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!!! Back off! Just stay out of me!!!”

Considering I was born unto myself, I’m being all that a mother should. This is the greatest of joys. So why do you resist me? Haah, just stop resisting and accept me.

 

***

 

The masked woman ran alone through the unrecognizable capital. “Haah…haah…haah…”

She might have stood down if someone told her this was the will of God. But until then, she couldn’t stand by and watch this happen. It was like her body moved of its own accord. An onlooker would probably laugh derisively at her inability to make a choice; she would probably even laugh at herself. What did she want to do? What was she trying to do now? And where did she want to go?

“Haah…haah…haah…” She stopped. A squishing sound erupted behind her mask, and it filled with blood.

She clenched her fist tightly as she tried to work through the turmoil that came from that bizarre sensation. Looking up, she caught sight of the bobbing cocoons. Their color and intensity changed with the emotional corruption they were exposed to, starting out as a light, semitransparent red before darkening to purple.

“I wonder what kind of face you’re making right now.”

She hadn’t been able to find Linus.

She had hoped to save him, but there were too many issues she had yet to confront.

She stood before Cyrill, wrapped in her cocoon. It had taken longer to get her, possibly because she lost consciousness when she used Brave, or because she was a hero, but in any case, the corruption crept slowly.

“Judgment!” Maria lifted her hand and summoned a blade of light to cut the girl free.

Cyrill fell unceremoniously to the ground, covered in a thick ichor. Thanks to the slow progression of the corruption, she’d suffered only a few scrapes on her hands and legs.

Maria stepped to Cyrill’s side and cast healing magic on her injuries.

“Hnnnnnng…”

Cyrill groaned in pain momentarily before finally opening her eyes…only to find a masked woman staring back at her.

“Whau?!” She moved instantly to put some distance between them, drew her sword, and took up a fighting stance. “Maria?! Wh-what are you doing here??”

“I came to save you. Take a look around. This is no time for us to be fighting.”

Cyrill wanted to shoot back a few words of challenge, but she chose to take in her surroundings first—the red, pulsing veins blanketing the ground, the forest of cocoons, a darkening crimson sky. Everywhere she looked, there was a new horror to take in.

“Wh-what happened… Where’s Flum? Eterna? Gadhio? Linus??”

“We’re the only ones with control over our faculties. If we don’t destroy this Mother, the completed version of the fourth-generation project, then we’ll meet the same fate.”

Maria gestured toward a cocoon and the massive baby that came tumbling out of it.

“Uuu…wauuugh!”

Cyrill shook her head in denial, wanting to believe for even a moment that the monster wasn’t once human. But the bizarre world she’d awoken to wouldn’t humor her denial. The massive head embedded in the wall of flesh above spoke up.

“No need to run, darling! If you love me, then just stay still, and I’ll love you more than you can stand! Oooooouuuu!”

Tendrils lashed toward them, unwinding and weaving into deadlier shapes.

“Just what is that thing?” Deep inside, Cyrill knew what the creature that took over the capital really was, but the way it attacked defied belief. It took a moment for her mind to catch up.

“As far as I can tell, that red thing up there is on our side. I know it doesn’t seem that way, but some of its consciousness remains.”

Maria’s voice was tinged with admiration as she watched Nekt press the attack against Mother. She turned her attention back to Cyrill, tone growing cold as she fixed her gaze on the terrified and confused young girl.

“It looks like she’s buying us some time, so now’s our chance. You want to save Flum, don’t you?”

Cyrill took a deep breath and nodded. She didn’t trust Maria, but she knew that Flum and the others were in very real danger. For now, they had no choice but to join forces.

“Well, then,” said Maria, “let’s get going.”

“All right.” Cyrill stood up and, with a bright flash, summoned forth her Epic-tier equipment: white gauntlets, armor, greaves, a cape, and a headband.

They took off toward the mammoth cocoon where Flum was being held.