Stepping Up

[A/N: This chapter got re-posted due to tech issues.]

“Used to be Arista… John, you can’t possibly mean what I think you do,” Moira said, blinking a few times. “These creations of yours… you said that your ability allowed you to turn Barrier creatures into stable, living beings.”

“I… I did. That’s what I understood it to be. But if we’re going by the actual wording, it only requires an ‘Abyssal creature’…” John said slowly, his voice uncertain.

“That’s ridiculous. What, because we have magic, we’re Abyssal?” Moira scoffed.

“Maybe. I had to prove my claims about my abilities to get Adantia to agree to accompany me here. Then when I ended up using Purify on Arista shortly after, she found out when she saw me freaking out about the whole thing. She had a couple of ideas – she said it might just be that my ability’s description is a lie, but that’s never happened before. She also said it could be a play on words. Technically we call it the Abyss, right? Maybe that’s what it means. We’re Abyssal creatures because we’re creatures in what we call the ‘Abyss’.”

John paused, waiting to see if the idea sounded as ridiculous to the others as it did to him. All he saw was trouble – conflict and a smidgen of existential crisis plastered both Tricia and Moira’s faces.

“That seems like a rather absurd assumption to make… but the alternatives are no less absurd, and might have far darker implications. But the only way to test whether that’s true or not-”

“-would be for me to try to Purify a mundane human. Yeah, I’ve thought about that. I mean, an animal could also work, I guess, but they don’t really have the same divide between Abyssal and mundane, do they?”

“No, not so far as we know. And if they did, testing on them would be even more inadvisable as they’d likely share the same protections from the Abyss that normal mundanes do.”

“I thought that mundanes just… sort of forgot whatever they saw of the Abyss? Rationalized it, pretended it was something other than magical?” John asked, trying to recall the explanation Etriyya had given him so long ago.

“More or less. But that’s only for what they see. Actually affecting mundanes with magic in any significant way leads to more severe complications.”

“The severity of the infraction matters a little, but I’ve no doubt that an ability such as yours falls on the more severe end of the spectrum,” Tricia droned on, her eyes still glued to a screen on one of her drones. “If an Abyssal chooses to actively and knowingly interfere in the lives of mundanes using magic for direct purposes, the abnormalities grow far more severe than a few misunderstandings. Mundanes around them begin to forget them, and if they continue their actions, eventually all mundanes become unable to perceive them at all.”

“So they walk around like a ghost? That’s a little creepy, but not really terrible for most Abyssals, right?”

“It is for some. Many Abyssals, especially late bloomers like yourself, still have mundane family. But that isn’t where it ends, either. We don’t really have any way to prove it, given the circumstances, but…” Tricia hesitated, a note of concern entering her voice, “it is theorized that if you continue to intervene in the lives of mundanes using magic, eventually you cease being able to interact with the world at all. Mundane or Abyssal. People stop perceiving you, and you cease being able to affect them. You exist as a ghost until you die, by old age or your own hand. Experiments have been conducted attempting to prove this, but given they are effectively attempting to prove the unprovable, results have been… inconclusive.”

John blinked a few times, caught off guard by the severity. “So, what, you cast a few too many spells and you get shunted to another plane, and live the rest of your life in some kind of void?”

“That is… the working theory, yes,” Tricia admitted, looking a bit sheepish about something so unprovable.

“That’s why the Order doesn’t spend more time using our healing magic to attend to those suffering,” Moira offered, looking genuinely sad. “If we could, no one in Springfield would ever die of preventable causes again. Even if we were still barred from extending their lifespans as the mages of the Abyss do, we could at least offer them a full, natural lifespan and comfort in their final days… The fact that we cannot has pained every Warden since we were first blessed. I am no exception. The fact I am gifted with so many healing abilities and such blessings while others suffer and die from ailments magic could easily correct…”

Moira was a rather stoic woman, but even her eyes filled with the glisten of unshed tears, despite how unfazed she seemed. It was obviously a sore subject, one that she had likely spent many long nights contemplating.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize… I guess I just assumed it was too big of a risk, or…”

John trailed off, not sure where to go from there. Silence engulfed the group until Moira’s eyes sought John’s, resolution replacing her sorrows.

“There are many things that I wish I could change about this world, not only the Abyss. But I fear we’ve lost the point of this conversation. There are many possible implications of what you’ve done, John, but those will take time and effort to study and isolate. For now, I have a question with a more immediate answer, one I feel we’ve skipped over – what in the hell possessed you to try such a thing in the first place?!”

“W-well, I wasn’t intending to originally. Honestly, I had full intentions of killing Arista once she led me across the country. But I…” John did his best to word things in a way that would leave Vallya out of the conversation, not wanting to open yet another can of worms, especially if he had to explain what she had been Purified from.

“When my anger cooled a bit, though, I wanted to do better. To be better. I wanted to start that by sparing Arista’s life, but… I didn’t account for her so actively rejecting life after what I did. She tried to goad me into killing her or get herself killed quite a few times while we were traveling; once I took the collar off, she came at me herself. I refused to kill her, thinking it was merciful, but she seemed to think otherwise. She attacked me, tried to **** me to kill her, and when I settled for disabling her and leaving her behind, she threatened to keep coming after me until I killed her or something else did.”

John frowned, remembering the sensations and thoughts that had run through him at that moment. “When I was debating whether to break down and give her what she seemed to want, something came over me. I’m not sure what it was; I moved to Arista with a purpose, asked if she surrendered herself to me, and then I put my hand on her and Purified her. I’d never even thought about using Purify on a human before then, and it felt different, somehow. It’s so hard to describe, but it felt like… like I was calling out to something. Like I was re-writing the world itself, in some way. Or maybe I was just re-writing her. I don’t… I don’t really know what I was doing...”

John fell silent, his memories and words failing him. The feelings he had experienced when Purifying Arista were too primal and foreign to properly describe. What could he possibly say that would relate to anything even an Abyssal might understand? Purifying Arista had felt like reaching through the cosmos itself, twisting and reorienting the threads of fate itself. Somehow, the pure and innocent woman that was Farrah emerged from that typhoon of fate and chaos. How could he explain that?

To make matters worse, thinking back on it was starting to bring those same feelings of shock from when it had first happened. His breath was quickening and growing short. His legs swayed slightly, and he had to put effort into holding himself straight. While he was fumbling for words and trying to orient his shell-shocked mind, Moira growled at him.

“John, I know your abilities are beyond even your own understanding, but you have to try harder than this. How can you be so unclear on your own potential? How can you be so reckless with abilities that could have disastrous consequences? You could well have-”

John’s buoy in his sea of uncertainty came from a place he admittedly did not expect as Moira’s frustrations grew. Sophia straightened her spine as she glanced around, meeting John’s gaze only as long as she met Moira’s. Then, she did something she’d never done before. She stepped in front of John.

“I have been present for many conversations you have had with my Father, about a great variety of topics. It seems that a number of these discussions always end in uncertainty, questioning what brought any of you to the point you now stand at. I am aware my ‘simplistic’ views of things are not always seen as relevant, or even ‘acceptable’ by your standards. All the same, I cannot abide your irreverent tone.”

Sophia took another step forward, seeming to make herself larger as she did so, a slightly golden glow emanating from the spots on her back where her wings would have been had she released them.

“My Father has only ever done what he believed best for his family. A term that should only apply to a leader’s nest, but one which he has all the same frequently applied to your nest as well as his own. Others might have questioned his leadership for those choices. I have followed him despite that breach of priority because he is clearly a man of character, but more importantly, because the primary thing I have learned from your constant agitation is that his abilities are beyond not only my own understanding, but yours as well – and maybe beyond anyone’s. Perhaps you should allow him to explain, or work with him to understand what happened, instead of berating him.”

The room fell silent for a long while. John was awed at the display, mouth slightly agape.

“I- you… make a fair argument, though my points still stand,” Moira insisted. “John, gather yourself and finish explaining what happened.”

“I just… at first, I just didn’t want to kill her. I thought that if I spared her, the person I hated most in the world at the time, it would be something like moving on. That was naive, I know. But there was something buried, something I didn’t even realize at the time. My mind was fixated on… on a fresh start. I thought if she could start over, undo the damage that had been done, then maybe – someday – I could undo some of what had been done to me.”

The last words came out as a whisper, wavering in their uncertainty. The thoughts had been buried under so much anger and hate; even before the strange feelings overtook him, he wasn’t sure if he was just imagining them. He’d wanted to try walking a different path… perhaps he really had wanted her to do the same. At the very least, Moira seemed defused by his words.

“That’s an… understandable train of thought. And trying to spare a woman who cost you so much is certainly a righteous choice, John.” Moira paused, seemingly putting effort into her words and level tone. “You said it felt like something was guiding you as you Purified her?”

“Yeah. I never would have tried it otherwise, I didn’t think it could work on humans,” John said. “Arista threatened to keep coming after me for the rest of my life, until either I killed her or someone else did. I got angry, but then this strange sense of calm came over me. I suddenly knew exactly what to do. And the Purify felt different somehow, like I was… like I was touching other worlds.”

“Other worlds? You mean like yours?”

“No, like I saw other possibilities. Different timelines, multiverse theory, whatever you want to call it. There was this big tangle of threads, and I felt like I understood how to weave through them. They were everywhere, like a part of reality that had always been there, but I was just… suddenly able to see. I don’t understand why. I reached out and all these loose threads suddenly pulled tight, and I grabbed one, and then…”

John’s voice broke slightly, remembering how it had felt when he first laid eyes on Farrah.

“Then she was there. And I had no idea what I’d done. I ended up having something of a panic attack… actually I almost had one just now, when I was trying to describe it the first time.”

“I… I see. I suppose that would be quite overwhelming.”

John wasn’t sure whether Moira was trying to save face over her earlier anger or simply not wanting to let her guard down too much in front of Tricia and Sophia, but he thought he could see a sympathy building behind her stoic eyes.

“John, would you be willing to allow us to use magic to examine your memories of that incident?” Tricia asked, her attention totally focused on him, something of a rarity. Her drones flitted nervously in the distance as she met John’s gaze with a deep intensity. “I understand it’s something of an invasive set of spells, and we’d have to find a specialist from outside the Order to be able to seek and share those sensations in a manner I can analyze, but… to be frank, I believe your story – that terrifies and excites me. There’s no telling what revelations we might learn from something like this.”

“I… look, this is all a bit much for me, and I’m not even sure what happened. If you can find someone who can cast the spell we can trust, maybe. For now, I don’t think it’s a great idea to bring in third parties and worry about mental magic while we’re on the cusp of a war.”

“On that, at least, we can fully agree. John, I… I appreciate your openness, no matter the concerns and stresses that will no doubt haunt me tonight,” Moira said, voice tersely level as she rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “Given all that has transpired over the past few weeks, I can forgive and understand why you waited to mention all this. I will keep this new information in mind. My duties and worries aside, are you entirely sure that you can trust her?”

“…”

The word yes danced along John’s lips, but never came out. Even two days ago, even after the shocks and trauma of his travel to the west, John would have answered yes without hesitation. All the damage that had ever been done by his Purify ability had been done to his targets, never to others.

But Vallya had changed that.

Moira seemed to see the hesitation and fear in John’s eyes. “I see. Do not allow wishes for mercy to become an obligation you allow to override common sense, then. It is a path that leads to… great loss.”

Moira’s eyes reflected John’s own, a deep pain resonating between them. John tried to reach out to her, but Moira had already turned toward the door by the time his hand moved. She was gone before his fingers could even brush her armor, and though he considered calling out to her, there was something in her stance that drove him to silence. A pain found not in anything he had done, but simply unearthed memories that had never been fully buried to begin with.

“She is… making a greater effort for you than I have seen her make for anyone else in some time. This past year has been hard for her. I suspect she only held herself together so well because she was somewhat numbed due to the constant shocks you inflicted on her,” Tricia said. John turned toward her and noticed the softest smile dancing on her lips. “Do not worry. She will pull herself together, I know it. She is shockingly resilient, and though these topics have brought up bad memories, they have not truly affected her.”

“She’s not the only one I’m worried about. Or… was worried about, at least,” John noted, stepping closer to Tricia. He tried to put his concerns about Moira to the side for the moment, suspecting that chasing after her would only agitate her further. “You seem to be handling things far better than I worried you would. I owe you an apology for disappearing for so long, Tricia. Especially after leaving you in… such an unfortunate condition.”

John was shocked to see Tricia smile at his words, meeting his gaze with a somewhat uncharacteristic softness. Her eyes resonated with understanding he did not deserve as she spoke.

“John, I do not blame you for anything that has happened, or for not reaching out sooner. My condition when you vanished was due to my own actions. I… I knew what it took for you to trust me with an object as powerful as the stone you gave me. I also knew what it would mean to fail that trust. I could have simply handed it over and done my best to aid you in recovering it, but I was consumed by anger and I lashed out against the Albidians. They dealt with me swiftly… I am, quite honestly, fortunate to have survived. Moira kept them from finishing the job they began, even while suffering from the poisons they had tainted her with.”

There was a long silence as memories rolled over both of them.

“That you have not abandoned me entirely, or at the very least punished me for failing you so… that is enough to show me how much you care. And you have given me hope beyond what I could have ever imagined before the day you set foot in this Manor.”

“I would never have taken my wrath out on you,” John said, almost instinctively, sure he would never have taken his wrath out on Tricia no matter how deep his darker side had embedded itself. “It wasn’t your fault, what happened. But that aside… exactly what hope have I given you?”

“Before I met you I had only a single eye released, John. That is an abnormality, nearly a degenerative condition among my family. I have lost many of their records since I lost contact, but I studied them enough to know that only opening a single eye is a condition attributed only to failures and genetic defects,” Tricia said, her voice returning to its clinical, unfeeling tones. “But since I met you, though I may have felt great sorrows at times… I have now released five eyes in total. Though it has come at great cost, the possibility still remains that if I open a mere two more, I may finally achieve some semblance of control over myself.”

Tricia’s hands traced along her latex suit, the magical and technologically advanced fibers that kept her body in constant check. “I do not… I do not wish to remain in this bondage forever. I will tell you the same thing that I told Lerianna when we initially discussed what my specialized technology could do for her – technology can provide release and relief, but it is important to keep your focus on finding a solution that brings you happiness.”

“What solution is that for you?” John whispered.

“I never dared to dream about a life in which I can fully control myself. Not until you gave me hope that I could open the seven eyes bestowed upon me. Now… I just want to feel the way a normal person does. To adapt to life as it has been given to me, and become a part of the life of others without feeling the constant need to hold myself back.”

Tricia stepped away, pulling herself back from John. “I know that might sound like a simple dream, but it means the world to me.”

“If it’s important to you, then it’s important to me as well. I know we have pressing matters to deal with, but…”

John reached out to Tricia, placing his hand on her forearm. He felt her stiffen, felt her entire body tense at the touch, but she did not move away, and that meant more to him than words could describe.

“...All my violent rhetoric and anger aside, if I could have one wish, it would only be for us all to improve together. To grow and inspire each other, without all the losses that I see in all of your eyes.”

Tricia met his gaze with tears in her own eyes, tears that her drones and bodysuit were quick to disperse and subsume below a facade of calmness. All the same, John saw them while they were there, and that alone meant the world to him.