Uncomfortable Similarities

“Hey, I went easy when I made this place for you, but your abilities fuck with everything!” Adantia warned John. “If you’re a liar, now would be a good time to back down. Better alive and disgraced than dead and still pretty fucking disgraced!”

“Even if you think I’m lying about that, why are you just assuming I’m weak enough to die to this thing?” John asked, not taking his eyes off the bulky Drakin as it closed to within twenty feet of him.

“I seem to remember kicking your ass pretty hard back there,” Adantia taunted, and John could practically hear the grin on her face.

“I was trying to talk to you!” John objected.

“And I was trying to keep you alive to figure out who sent you. Still trying, by the way!”

John set his jaw, eye twitching slightly as he did his best to tune out Adantia and focus on the task ahead of him. Despite the towering figure of the Drakin now approaching, despite Adantia’s taunting disbelief in his skills, it wasn’t due to doubt of his skills or strength that he needed to focus.

He needed to focus so that there would be something left to Purify when he was done.

The Drakin raised its axe while it was still several strides away, but it reached the apex of its swing nearly two yards away, banking on one last lengthy stride and its hefty wingspan for its axe to fall on John. Its swing was accurate, its aim precise, and its maw twisted with a victorious smile even before the blow had landed.

But the axe never touched John’s skin. At arm’s length, with as much effort as he might have caught a floating feather, John’s fingers pinched the blade of the axe just a half-inch beyond the razor-sharp edge, bringing the metal to a halt with only the slightest of give. The Drakin let out a startled and frustrated grunt, pulling at the axe to no avail as John moved his hand to fully grip the weapon, unfazed and unaffected as his palm ground lightly against the sharpened edge.

John didn’t actually move, but he did open his inventory with the mental equivalent of a flick, summoning his sword forth and activating the Rune of Puppeteering on it. The sword drew itself free of its sheath, flourishing once in the air before pointing the tip directly at the Drakin’s chest, just off of where the beast’s heart would probably be, barring some unusual physiology. John’s control over the blade was precise and steady; gone were the initial clumsy and somewhat uncoordinated movements he’d had when manipulating the sword via the rune. It pierced forward with enough strength that even when the Drakin completely released its grip on its own weapon and moved to intercept the blade, it hardly slowed – the Drakin Enforcer simply ended up holding both hands on the hilt of the weapon now impaling its chest. It roared, first in anger and then in pain as John flicked his fingers upwards and the blade tore its way out of the Drakin’s chest via its shoulder, leaving the Drakin’s right arm hanging limp and immobile.

338 DMG!
791 DMG! Critical Hit!

The Drakin still had a ways to go before ****, at least according to its health bar, but the sudden trauma and pain had left it in a state of shock. The creature fell to a knee with one hand still gripped around the hilt, only trying to release the blade when John approached to finish it off. John cast White Lightning through the sword, not only dealing another burst of damage to the Drakin but also electrifying its body, causing the bruiser’s hands to involuntarily clench around the hilt and its legs to continue to falter, leaving it defenseless as John approached.

”Something distinctly inhuman,” John noted mentally as he approached the growling Drakin, trying to form an idea in his head of what to create. ”It has to be obvious that it’s not a human, not someone in an illusion spell, or another Barrier creature, or any kind of deception. Let there be no doubt as to its creator, let it know where it came from as well as everyone around. And judging by the similarities to what they were formed from so far, I get the feeling it might be a bit… scaly.”

“Purify,” John said as he reached out and touched the Drakin’s chestplate. He didn’t need to announce the technique’s name but he thought it couldn’t hurt, given Adantia’s skepticism. The Drakin was immediately engulfed in a white light, its body fading away and beginning to reform as John’s ability went to work. John’s sword fell free as its body became malleable and somewhat intangible, and he quickly redirected it to hover beside him.

John was expecting a snide remark from Adantia, but none seemed forthcoming. He glanced over his shoulder and only noted that she seemed to be deeply concentrating on something, staring between John, the light, and his hovering blade.

”Good… maybe she’s starting to believe,” John noted. ”Perhaps I can convince her to help me after all… or at least open up a little bit instead of stonewalling me at every turn.”

John returned his attention to the mass of light in front of him just as it finished reshaping; true to his expectations, there were wings and the light had shifted to a red hue in the instant before it started to dull. Thankfully, the form was as humanoid as John’s other creations, so it seemed his willing it to become undeniably non-human at least hadn’t created a literal animal. John had enough time to idly wonder if he could create non-humanoids, and how that would affect their disposition, just before the light faded away entirely.

The woman standing there before John was certainly undeniably non-human, at least from her physical appearance – she was the least human woman John’s Purify had ever created. This was mostly evident through her skin; where most of John’s creations had been mostly human with just a few bestial features (many of them even retractable or able to be hidden away, like the Nekos’ claws and Sophia’s wings), this woman clearly leaned into the monster girl style.

Not that she didn’t have plenty of human features. Her eyes were mostly normal, though her irises were red and a bit larger than ordinary. Her hair was perfectly human too, brown and a cute jaw-length cut that followed her chin. But the jawline was about where those more monstrous features became quite evident; this woman had very little proper skin. Her entire body was covered in crimson scales from head to toe, with only noticeable exceptions for her face, the front of her neck, and the collar area leading down into her breasts, as well as presumably the skin underneath her hair. Wings jutted out from her back, with larger, thicker scales all along the supportive bone structures, while the membranes were thick, leathery, and seemed both durable and yet almost slightly elastic as they moved.

She was also entirely naked, a fact that highlighted one more area the scales were absent. A pink trail of slowly widening skin started just below her navel and continued until it fully uncovered a hairless snatch, exposing her most private areas in the same way her face and breasts were revealed.

In spite of the fact that only the most intimate and personal of regions of her body were revealed, there was no shame on the face of the red-eyed woman who gazed at John. Instead there was something resembling awe and reverence in her face, a certain respect and deference that John had to admit he’d never seen on a woman other than Sophia. That devotion bordering on worship only became more pronounced when she opened her mouth and began to speak.

"It's... it's really you! My Lord, I've waited so long for this moment, I'm so excited to finally meet you! I always knew you would call upon me one day, I just knew it!"

"Holy shit... that's no Barrier creature. Its aura is all over the place, it's..." Adantia paused, actually lost for words, her jaw half-gaping

"I told you," John said, musing over how long it had been since he’d met someone who was actually shocked to see his abilities in person – in many ways Adantia’s reaction brought John back to the start of his adventure. Something in her expression reminded him of explaining the absurd things that had happened to him to all of his old allies: Moira, Tricia, Kim…

John never thought an expression of shock could make him feel so nostalgic and homesick, but by Gaia, he missed Springfield.

“You doubted the Lord?” the dragoness said, actually gasping as she placed her hand over her mouth, a gentle clicking filling the air as some of her two-inch long claws tapped against her own scales. “I had not imagined… I heard the world the Lord was from was most hostile, but I assumed that hostility was directed toward each other, not toward the Almighty Himself.”

“I’m sorry, did you just call him ‘the almighty’? Because I almost killed this guy on accident about-”

“I will speak to you about all this shortly,” John said, loudly enough to interrupt Adantia. “I’m going to send you back to our new world, but first, what’s your name?”

“I- I get to see the Lord’s private realm?! To visit His-” The dragoness blushed as she caught herself, slapping her hands over her mouth for an instant before stammering out an answer to John’s actual question; “My name is Yvara, my Lord. It is an honor to finally meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, and we’ll talk soon,” John said, before placing his hand on Yvara’s head and using Summoner’s Warp to send her away to the new world. As she vanished from reality, John turned back to Adantia, expecting to see some kind of taunting or skeptical look on her face. After all, the last thing she’d said was a joke at his expense. It was true that as John rounded on her, he saw some trace of sarcastic humor still flitting briefly across her expression, but that brief humor was quickly replaced by a flurry of emotions. Shock, curiosity, a look of deep and profound thought… and then a realization, one so significant it was almost a complete awakening.

“You… that was real, wasn’t it?” Adantia said, pausing for a long while and stammering a few nonsensical syllables before managing to look at John, her eyes deadly serious. “I… I still can’t help you. You have to realize that, don’t you?”

“Oh, come on, I thought we had a bet? Besides, you can’t tell me you aren’t intrigued by this – everyone else was blown away when they found out what I could do, and even you argued it was impossible.”

“And I’m sure you haven’t gone this long without figuring out how fucked that makes you! That’s the thing about the Abyss, John. Being unique, being special or talented or even just building a city where people don’t have to worry about being killed in their sleep? That just makes you into a target. If I go with you, between your abilities and my coming back from the dead, can you even imagine the kind of attention that would put on us? It’ll only be a matter of time before some of the biggest Abyss players get involved, even the Deities would-”

Adantia froze in the middle of her angry lecture, her eyes widening slightly and her jaw dropping for a reason John didn’t immediately understand. Not until Adantia started to talk once more, this time far less angrily and with notes of fear in her voice.

“But… if you’re telling the truth about this, then… then you were probably telling the truth about everything!” Adantia slammed her palms against the sides of her head, fingers tightening around her hair and scalp as she continued frantically.

“That means Himiko really did send you here, that means she knows I’m still alive. If she knows, then as soon as she wants something from me, I’m fucked! She’ll **** me by threatening to tell Suula about me, and even if I agree to help her, Suula will probably find out from whatever fucked up shit she orders me to do that I’m still alive, so either way I’m screwed. As soon as she finds out, Rachel and anyone else who was outside the city at the time immediately become targets! I’m fucked, I’m so completely, utterly, royally fucked! And I can’t even blame you anymore, because apparently Himiko knew the whole fucking time, so even if Rachel doesn’t go telling the world about this, even if she listened to me, I’m still fucked!”

John eyed Adantia as the panic became evident on her face, feeling tremors passing under his feet, causing him to idly wonder what kind of effect her mental state was having on the metal cable network underneath them. John’s instinct was to tell her that something like that wouldn’t happen… but wouldn’t it? Himiko may have liked him because of whatever she saw in him that reminded her so much of Isamu, but John couldn’t say she was a “good” person by any means.

Further, John wasn’t quite sure that he wanted to comfort her. Not like that, at least.

"If you're so worried about this, if you really think it’s only a matter of time... then you should definitely come with me," John said, nodding his head for emphasis.

"Did you actually listen to a word I said?" Adantia asked, somewhat incredulously. "Just because I'm gonna get screwed doesn't mean I want to speed up the process!"

"Like you said, it's probably only a matter of time before something exposes you now. If you're revealed by Himiko or Rachel and you're still hiding here, what's to stop Suula from hunting the others down first? She knows right where you are, and she knows you don't have any outside contact. She can spend years hunting down survivors if she wants to, and kill them there or drag them here to torment you with.”

"And you think by throwing myself into a war, she'll come after me first?" Adantia asked skeptically.

"Well, she let Rachel and anyone else lucky enough to be away from here live all this time. She doesn't seem interested in killing them as much as using them as a threat to keep you locked away here. You haven't really told me much, but it's obvious she thinks it’s very important that the world thinks you're dead. Can't really do that if you're at the center of the biggest Abyssal conflict in North America, can she? Whether she wants you dead for real or just to trick everyone again, she’ll have to come for you.”

"And what stops her from rounding up all the survivors first to use them against me? Suula slaughtered an entire city, I have no doubt she'd use hostages."

"The Abyss is a dangerous place, and it’s been a long time. Do you even know if anyone besides Rachel is still alive?” John asked, letting the silence he got in response hang in the air for a second before continuing. "It doesn't make a difference either way; if you keep your head buried in the sand, then when news of your survival does leak, Suula gets to hunt them down at her leisure. She might even start with whoever revealed the information in the first place... like Rachel."

"Don’t you try to use Rachel against me,” Adantia warned. “You don't know Suula; hell, even I don’t. I thought I did, then she burned down everything I cared about. I'm not going to come with you just to gamble it all on taunting Suula into coming after me."

"You're right, you're not going to come with me because of that. You're going to come with me because you're tired of lying awake at night, wondering why you live in a world where people have magic and basically take it for granted that God is real and she’s watching over us... and yet people like that sick, twisted fuck are still out there walking free, instead of burning in the deepest pits of hell. Because you know that nobody else even thinks justice exists in this world anymore... so if you want some, you're going to have to do it yourself."

"First trying to understand Suula, now acting like you know me? Gotta admit, you've got a hell of a brave/stupid mix going. I like it, but it’s not going to work.”

Adantia’s words were bold, but her tone had faltered slightly. Only for a few moments… but enough for John to notice, and enough for him to know he’d hit close to a nerve. The echoes of Vallya’s assurances that Himiko had chosen Adantia for a reason rang through John’s mind.

“You’ve been very clear that I don’t know you… and very resistant to my attempts to fix that. But I know the feeling of wanting ****. Wanting to see justice, to see the universe balance itself just once. I might not have done it for even a fraction as long as you, but I know the feeling of trying to make a difference the right way, trying to help people, and having it taken away by tragedy. I know the anger, the feelings of failure, the despair of having to reconcile being taught to be fair your whole life, only to find out that the universe – the actual, Gaia-created universe – is inherently unfair.

“I know things weren’t exactly the same – and you definitely had it a lot worse than me. You didn’t have anyone else around you… and you haven’t gotten to right the wrongs that were done to you. But we have one more thing in common, and it’s the reason you’re going to come with me. While we sat holed up in our sanctuaries, the world around us was setting up the dominoes to finish off what little good we still thought was left, and the only way to fix it – to have a chance at fixing any of it – is to go back out into the Abyss.”

“...I liked you more when you were dumb,” Adantia responded after a long pause, smiling bitterly. “You can’t know that Suula is going to find out, or that me going out there is going to be what stops someone from dying.”

“I can’t. Neither can you. But we both know if you stay here any longer, you’ll spend every single minute of every single day wondering just how badly people you care about are getting hurt because you did nothing.”

“…”

Adantia’s entire body tensed, and her fists clenched so tightly that John was quite sure for a moment that he was about to be attacked.

“I really fucking hate you right now,” Adantia growled, stomping toward John. John fought the urge to flinch or brace as she strode right beside him, off toward the city.

“I know that feeling too,” John half-mumbled, starting to walk after Adantia.

“Don’t follow me. I have some things to… take care of. Meet me at the bottom of the cliffs in half an hour. That should give us both plenty of time.”

“Alright. I know you were using those cables when we passed by the first time; you saw where we climbed up, right?”

“There’s the stupid side I was starting to miss. Hey asshole, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but…” Adantia taunted, her voice rising as she turned around, waving her hand in front of her face while walking backwards until she vanished into her Barrier again.