Second Life, Second Chance

“You… don’t know who you are?” John asked, his eyes wavering across her form.

“No, I don’t think so. I mean, I can’t remember a name. Actually, I don’t remember much of anything… That’s strange. Do I know you? Are you a friend?”

John stammered for a brief moment, unsure of what to say. The whispers and influence had left his mind, and even the notification about his Shard had faded away. Now he was just himself again, unsure and rather shocked by the unexpected turn of events himself. The confidence that had filled him was rapidly fading away. In its place was left a shattered presence of mind, one confounded by the description of Purify that had for some reason popped up in his periphery.

Purifies an Abyssal creature.

“I… yes, I’m a friend,” John said, unable to keep his voice level. He tried to keep his gaze steady, but every time he let his mind wander for an instant, his eyes flicked over to the window.

Purifies an Abyssal creature.

“Are you? You don’t sound very sure…”

For a moment the woman looked almost frightened, a hesitance entering her otherwise eager eyes. She put one of her hands up to her face, nervously resting two of her fingers against her lips.

“...But, I guess if you weren’t a friend, you wouldn’t tell me anyway. You don’t seem like you’re lying, and you haven’t tried to hurt me. So… I’ll believe you!” the woman exclaimed, clapping her hands together as if that decided the matter. “You can be my first friend! Or, well, at least the first one I can remember…”

The slightly troubled look that passed over the brunette’s face only lasted an instant before a warm, enveloping smile spread out across her face. The genuine happiness that radiated from her was something John hadn’t seen in quite a while – it wasn’t a passion or enthusiasm for something she enjoyed. She just seemed… happy. Removed from all the cares of the world.

”What was I thinking about when I created her? I wasn’t really thinking at all… I didn’t even feel like myself. She looks completely different, and seems to have no memories at all. The last person created like that… Sophia? No, I didn’t create her, she was given to me as a reward for a random dungeon. I still haven’t gotten another like her, either. Everyone else has remembered a family, even Maera and Mithra seem to remember living with other Nekos. And they all had names, all but Sophia...”

Purifies an Abyssal creature.

“I’m more than happy to be your friend,” John said, trying his best to keep a steady smile. To shake away the questions clouding his mind, the uncertainties that couldn’t be answered. He wasn’t sure if he was successful, but at least this time the beautiful woman’s warm look didn’t seem so uncertain or afraid.

Purifies an Abyssal creature.

“That would be nice. I hope I can have a lot of friends one day… Oh! I know I don’t remember much, but that happening seems... unusual. Is that normal?” the brunette asked, pointing to the cliff-face above them.

John followed the gesture and found his throat tightening as he saw a lone figure clad in yellow and green descending the cliff. It was Adantia, of course, held aloft by a cluster of cables that were carrying her in the same manner as she had carried herself and John earlier. Fear of Adantia’s reaction spiked through him, though he wasn’t sure why – he wasn’t even sure what his own reaction was just yet. Shock was numbing not only his mind, but his body as well. John’s fingertips were cold and deadened, and the radiating heat in his chest was forming a stark and alarming contrast within his own body.

“Listen, I know that things are a little confusing right now,” John said as he turned back to the newly Purified woman, taking note of the absolute understatement of the year he’d just made, “but I don’t have much time to explain. I’m going to send you somewhere else, okay? It’s somewhere safe, somewhere you’ll meet other friends, I-”

“B-but I just got here!” the woman objected. “I don’t want to go somewhere new already! How are you going to send me there? Who are your friends?”

“Look, I-” John tried to stammer out something that sounded less frustrated, less frantic than he felt at the moment. It was futile; not only could he barely hear his own voice because of the pounding in his ears, but Adantia strode up beside them at that moment. John shifted his vision to the side, trying unsuccessfully to keep himself steady as the words echoed in his mind again.

Purifies an Abyssal creature.

“Alright, everything’s taken care of, I’ve got the city set up… is this Arista? Doesn’t look like I was expected; the dress hers, or did you just use it as a disguise? Bit formal for a mercenary commander,” Adantia noted casually as she strode up to them.

Adantia’s speed was something John had failed to anticipate – with her power, scaling the cliff was a matter of moments, not even full seconds. She already had her feet planted on the ground not far from where they were, and had managed to open her mouth and say something problematic within seconds. While John had an instant of relief that she wasn’t reacting immediately negatively to the situation, that had been ruined by the very first words out of her mouth.

“Who is Arista? What’s this about mercenaries?” the newborn woman asked, her eyebrows furrowing as she looked between Adantia and John with curiosity and a renewed uncertainty.

“Wait, that’s not her? I felt this woman’s energy when you guys were running around the city. How many people did you bring on this road trip?” Adantia asked.

“I just… this is… this was Arista,” John stuttered out, shock bringing the truth out of him more effectively than any other method could.

Purifies an Abyssal creature.

“...What do you mean, was?” Adantia asked, an immediate suspicious tone present in her voice as she stared at John.

“I don’t… I don’t know. I don’t know what I mean, I don’t know what happened, I just-”

Purifies an Abyssal creature.

John’s breath was coming in gasps. His vision was blurring and spinning nearly as quickly as his mind was. His skin and extremities felt numb, but his core and organs felt a compounding pressure, as if his heart was pumping too much blood, threatening to make his organs burst from his chest.

“John, you’re turning a bit pale, and your aura is fluctuating out of control,” Layla said, stepping up beside John. “I think I can help, I just… I just… oh my-”

Layla moved to put her hand on John’s arm, and suddenly she seemed almost as shaky as John was. He stared at the point of contact, then looked up to meet Layla’s gaze. His limbs were trembling so strongly that he was having a hard time staying on his feet. In an attempt to keep himself steady and to calm the thrumming in his chest, John pulled Layla in closer, clinging tightly to her body.

It wasn’t clear whose legs gave out first; all John knew was that he struggled to pull them to fall into a kneeling position, rather than onto at least one of their literal asses. To John’s surprise, by the time they landed, Layla was shaking nearly as much as he was. The black-haired Aurist tucked her head into his shoulder and clung so tightly to him that John’s already screaming nervous system pumped the thought that something must have gone wrong with her as well through his entire system.

“Layla? Layla, what are-”

“Geez, how the fuck did you make it this far?”

John had been too preoccupied with his own panic and Layla’s reaction to notice Adantia’s approach, but he couldn’t miss what happened as the toned woman planted an open palm onto his sternum. What felt at first like an attack quickly transformed into something else; John felt mana flowing through him, a new status effect popped up, and a serenity washed over him all in nearly the same moment, each of them only growing the longer Adantia’s palm made contact with him.

Within moments John’s ragged, gasping breaths were coming in steady, slow, even relaxed pulls. His **** grip around Layla had become a gentle cuddling, his hands loosely pulling her slackened form to him in a protective manner. Even his mind had calmed, the voices and repeating words of his mind fading away.

The fearful thoughts were still there. The troubles of the world had not vanished, nor had they receded in severity or their pressing natures… but they were calm. His emotions, his fears, even his pulse had receded. They no longer felt as though they were pressing John from all sides, surging around him like waters threatening to drown him. Now, John stood again as the captain of the ship that was his mind. The waters were murky, brooding, and foreboding… but at last they were still, and he was in control again.

“I… what did you do?” John said, shocked at the effects of what had been done to him, how instant and powerful the relief was.

“You were having a panic attack, dumbass,” Adantia said, though her voice lacked most of the antagonistic tones and annoyance it had possessed earlier while she was first dealing with him. “Even though your body might be magic, your mind definitely isn’t. You can get as strong or fast as you want, but we all still have to deal with the same bullshit when it comes to mental health.”

“So you learned a spell to calm down? Sounds a lot like what Tricia uses,” John mumbled. “Did you use to have panic attacks a lot?”

“I just… it was something useful to learn. Helped take care of other people,” Adantia replied tersely. “Seems like it came in pretty handy to babysit you. You mind slowing things down for a second and telling me what exactly threw you for a loop there?”

“Yeah, but what about Layla?! I may have been having a panic attack, but she passed out completely! We need to get her medical attention, or-”

“She’s, um… she’s fine,” Adantia said, holding her hand up and stifling a chuckle very conspicuously. “She passed out, but it wasn’t because she’s hurt. She should be up in… oh, I dunno, a really good one like that would put me out for about five minutes?”

“A really good… what?”

“Don’t worry about it. Ask her when she wakes up, that’ll be fun. No, seriously,” Adantia said, holding up a finger to silence John before he could interrupt her. “I want to be around for that one, and I’m done discussing this until then. So, what made you have a breakdown like that?”

“I don’t… where do I start?”

Where to start wasn’t actually all that hard, given that John had just demonstrated his Purify ability to Adantia. Explaining things from there should have been simple… if John had any idea what had actually happened. As he recounted his story, including every detail he could remember, right down to the words that Arista used to surrender to him, Adantia made no visible reaction. The new woman, though, she looked more and more troubled with every word. John met her gaze once, then looked away guiltily. He wasn’t sure if he saw more fear, sadness, or anger in those beautiful eyes.

“You’re sure that’s the wording used for your technique? Down to the letter?” Adantia asked, her gaze narrowing.

“Absolutely.”

“And your abilities have never been wrong or deceitful before?”

“Well… there was some confusion early on. Specifically with this technique, actually. When I first got Purify, it didn’t even have a full description; it just sort of… told me what it did. It told me to use it, didn’t give very specific parameters, and filled in the description in full later after I used it for the first time.”

“So your weirdest and biggest rule-breaking power also likes to fuck with you.”

“Yeah… my powers do that a lot,” John said, sighing. “But whatever rules they set, they never use their own definitions, or make things up. Whatever it tells me has always been correct. And when I used it on Arista, it…”

John trailed off. Even with his emotions calm, there was a dull numbness in his mind when he tried to process the feelings that had coursed through him in those moments.

“Well, if things weren’t weird enough already, they sure are now,” Adantia murmured. “Look, I still don’t know what’s going on with you, but honestly, this isn’t any more shocking than you being able to create new creatures in the first place. Maybe “Abyssal” just means anything magical… ever tried using it on something mundane? Anything – a dog, a cat?”

“No, never. I only used it on Barrier creatures for now.”

“Then figure it out if you want to… or put it behind you if you don’t. Doesn’t really matter for what we have to do,” Adantia said simply. “We’re going to fight a war; what we do with these necromancers after we beat them isn’t as important as beating them in the first place.”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re right. We should get moving. I’ll, um… I’ll carry Layla,” John offered, lifting the curvy Aurist as gently and in as gentlemanly a way as he could.

“Sounds good. You coming, Ari- uh… new girl?” Adantia asked, glancing over. John followed her gaze, meeting the questioning eyes of the scared woman.

“...Do I have to?” she asked, her voice wavering.

“I mean, you don’t have to, but it’d sure suck hiking through the desert from here, someone with as weak of a magical aura as you probably wouldn’t-”

”What she means is it’s your choice,” John emphasized, frowning. “I… I know I didn’t really explain things well at first, and I dropped a lot of information on you just then. I didn’t mean for this to happen, I didn’t even know it could happen. But it happened, and I definitely don’t think I can undo it. If you want nothing to do with us, I understand. If you want to follow us for a while and choose your own path, or your own time to leave, that’s fine too. And if you want to come with us and stay at my home, the place I was about to send you earlier… then that’s fine too.”

John wasn’t sure if any of it was really fine, not at this point. But the only reason John had – flimsy as it might have been – for keeping all of his creations in his world in the first place was that putting them out there in the world would put them in danger. Would leaving this woman here put her in any danger – or at least any more danger than any other human? A part of him very much did not believe that she was really human, even now…

John cast aside the thoughts that were already threatening to defy Adantia’s calming spell. It didn’t matter. She was human enough to pass to most, and John wasn’t even sure if he’d have the heart and resolve to hold one of his other creations hostage if they truly wanted to leave his domain.

“...I don’t know what to do. I don’t remember anything, or who I might have been before. Whoever I was, whatever you did to me, I don’t know anything about… well, anything. How am I supposed to decide?” she asked, cocking her head. Despite her words implying a mistrust of John and a sadness over her own current state, the woman was looking at John with an almost pleading expression, expecting answers from the very person who had just placed her into this position.

“You do what feels right,” John said, slowly venturing closer to the kneeling woman one step at a time. “I know that sounds simplistic… and maybe it is… but it’s all I know how to do anymore. Find the deepest voice inside of your heart and follow it.”

“…”

The woman paused for a long moment, her eyes cast downward. When she raised her gaze again, her eyes wavered, her voice shook, but a resolve remained.

“...I’ll go with you,” the brunette said firmly, clutching the pleats of her dress tightly as she nodded with certainty.

“Thank you.” John wasn’t sure quite why the words came, but unlike his actions to create the woman, they at least felt genuine and true to himself. Something about the way that she looked at him, with no reason to trust him and yet an unfettered if a bit uncertain honesty in the way she believed in his words, made John feel both proud and ashamed of what he’d done in equal measure. “I will try very hard to become worthy of your trust.”

“You’re already worthy of my trust,” she said, a soft smile breaking across her face for the first time since John had started talking about her background.

“W-what makes you say that?”

“Because… because you said you’d be my friend,” the woman half-whispered, eyes shimmering as she met John’s gaze with an openness and vulnerability that took his breath away. John stammered for a moment, unsure what to say, his words failing him in the face of such innocence.

“Wow, she might be even more naive than you are,” Adantia teased, elbowing John as she walked past him and toward the road where their car was still parked off to the side. John’s would-be retort died on his lips as he failed to speak at all, words lost upon the sheer innocence of this new woman’s gaze.

“...Father, this seems to be a lot to take in for you. Can I aid you in any way?”

Sophia had remained mostly silent. John wasn’t sure how much of the subtleties and nuance to what had just happened sunk into the otherwise blunt Harpy. Sophia didn’t seem to feel many of the same complicated reservations about emotions and relationships that John and his allies did, but even she clearly seemed to recognize how overwhelming the events of the last few minutes had been for John.

“I… can you carry Layla for a while, Sophia?” John mumbled, glancing between the Harpy and the nameless brunette. “Try to catch up with Adantia. I’m going to stay behind and take things slowly for a bit.”

“By your word, Father,” Sophia swore, offering a half-bow even as she accepted Layla’s limp body from John’s arms. Sophia chose to walk to the car rather than fly, her wings slowly receding into her body with the faint golden glow of their magical retraction.

“Come on, let me help you up. Are you feeling okay?”

“I… I think so. This is a lot to take in,” the woman breathed.

“Tell me about it,” John groaned. He had the feeling that they had a lot to discuss, not the least of which was coming up with a name for the newly born-again woman.