The Second Archon War: Superbia Hominum 11

Superbia Hominum 11: The Sweet Slow Poison

Snow flashed instantly to steam as another barrage from Eidolon’s lasers hit the ground, and the Fatui capes cried out in pain from the superheated air that boiled them alive. Several collapsed on the spot, while the rest were cut down by automatic rifle fire from Hannah. A dozen enemy combatants, all with Delusions, cut down in moments. 

But it wasn’t enough. 

Turning, Eidolon fired another laser blast, this time directly at his opponent. To his frustration, the attack connected, but the image of the Thief simply popped like morning mist, revealing it to simply be yet another ice mirror clone. 

Not that this fact did poor Grenadine any good. She lay in a pool of blood, trying to stuff her entrails back into her body. Not even nineteen yet, and she was going to die on a bloody battlefield in Europe as so many poor American children had done before her. 

Then one of the Knights of Favonius ran up to Grenadine. He was a frumpy old man with glasses, but he wore a sword and tabard and leather armor. He knelt by Grenadine, and his electro-vision glowed. A moment later, she passed out, but her wound was mended. Eidolon would have to thank Sir Leon later. At least he wouldn’t have to write Grenadine’s parents to tell them how brave their daughter had been. 

Still, Eidolon couldn’t allow himself to be distracted. There were still a dozen different Anatolys spreading chaos and destruction across the battlefield. Any of them could be the real one, or none of them could. The Thief preferred to strike from the shadows as ever, and Eidolon was about the only cape that Latvia, the Protectorate, or the Knights of Favonius could deploy here that had a hope of countering a Harbinger. 

He blew apart three more Cryo illusions, but the Fatui were retreating. He was half tempted to pursue, but he looked around at his beleaguered forces. Hannah was still on her feat and ready to fight, but Sir Leon hadn’t been able to save all their fallen. A dozen good capes were dead in the mud, half of them Protectorate. Too many were like Grenadine, barely graduated from the Wards. 

And that wasn’t even mentioning the hundreds of dead and wounded Latvian soldiers and PRT troopers, mixed in with even more dead Fatui. Another attack beaten off, but the defenders were too exhausted and drained to attempt a counterattack. 

“Regroup, and reinforce those trenches,” Eidolon gasped. “Miss Militia, on me. Let’s check the rest of the front.”

They fought three more skirmishes up and down the line around Riga that resulted in more dead on both sides. The defenders were stubborn but bloodied, while it seemed the Fatui had an endless supply of capes to throw at them. They were holding at last, but for how long? Things couldn’t keep going like this. 

“Damn the Tsaritsa,” Hannah growled, looking out at a highway full of burned out cars. There were corpses as well, not all of them military. Too many had been caught in the sudden violence of the all-out assault across Eastern Europe, from Poland in the south to Estonia in the sorth. Not that there was much of Estonia left. There were holdouts in Tallinn, but most of the country had fallen in mere days. There had been barely a dozen capes in all of Estonia, and over one hundred Fatui with Delusions had assaulted them. It had been a slaughter. Only Eidolon and the Protectorate had salvaged the dire situation in Latvia.

Well, and the Knights of Favonius. 

“Hey. Think they’re done for the day?” a tired-sounding woman with antlers asked, stumbling up to them. Yennifer had a bandage around her left thigh that had a brown stain on it, but she was still on her feet. 

“Day?” Hannah said with a snort. “Probably. No promises about tonight. You know how they love their night assaults.” 

“Oh joy. Night fighting. My favorite. Definitely what I studied in law school,” Yennifer groaned, flopping down in the trench beside Eidolon. She groaned and put her leg up on a crate of ammunition, closing her eyes. 

“Need a hand with that?” Eidolon asked, eyeing the wound.

Yennifer shook her head, her antlers rattling slightly as she did so. “No. It’s fine. It’s from some freaking barbed wire we put up. Got tangled in it like the stupid deer I am. Freaking useless powers of mine.”

Hannah and Eidolon were polite enough not to agree. Yennifer was a parahuman with the distinctly unimpressive ability to grow antlers that could burst into flame. She could pluck them and throw them at her enemies, and they’d regrow, but it wasn’t exactly a top class Blaster power. The PRT had her down as a Blaster 2, and that was probably being generous. The rifle she had slung on her back with elemental ammunition was probably more dangerous. 

“We don’t have you here because you’re a good fighter. You’re a damn good organizer and leader. You’ve kept the Knights in the fight. Leon and the others have saved a lot of lives,” Eidolon told her matter of factly. 

“Gee thanks. Polite way of saying they sent you the old farts and the vunderkind. While the Protectorate sent us freaking Eidolon. Strongest cape in the US of A,” Yennifer said, cracking open one eye. 

“You’re French. You didn’t even have to come. The Mousquetaires haven’t even mobilized,” Hannah pointed out. “But you did.”

“I’ve got dual citizenship,” Yennifer said dismissively. “Plus I know Barbatos personally. I volunteered. Well, why don’t you two get some rack time. And don’t give me that noctus cape BS. Even noctus capes need a rest. Especially with those things.”

Yennifer nodded to the Delusions Eidolon and Hannah had strapped to their arms. Geo for him, Cryo for her. They did take a lot out of them, more than using their parahuman powers did for certain. But the benefits they provided were so great that it was worth the extra wear and tear. 

Still, Eidolon felt like he could sleep for a week. That was probably just the endless combat over the past week. Along with seeing so many dead. 

“If this is what the end of the world is like…” Eidolon muttered, shaking his head. Hannah shot him a look, but Yennifer laughed darkly. 

“That’s what it feels like, isn’t it? The White Witch and her misfit minions invade from the East, and Christendom is under siege from pagans once again. Maybe this is Armageadon.”

“No. It’s not even a prelude,” Hannah said, standing. “We’ll take you up on that rack time. You’re getting some yourself, right, Yen?” 

The Knight Captain waved them off. “Enough. Besides, I’m not one of our heavy hitters, far from it. You’ve only got about four hours until sundown. After that we’ll need you again when the Thief makes his inevitable night attack.”

Hannah offered him a hand, and Eidolon took it, rising to his feet with a grunt. “Thanks. Keep at it, Yen.” 

They walked off together, too tired even to fly to the barracks, which was half a click away. Eidolon hadn’t let go of Hannah’s hand, and they slogged through the muck and grim almost as if it were a romantic date instead of a catalog of horrors. 

“Can we really trust the Knights? They serve an Archon as well,” Hannah pointed out quietly. 

Eidolon shrugged. “A mostly useless one. Barbados hasn’t really done much of note, besides duel a supposed Endbringer. He spends his time singing and bar crawling. Besides, without them, we’d have already collapsed. We haven’t had time to fully mobilize.”

“True. I just can’t bring myself to trust them,” Hannah said with a sigh. “But the enemy of my enemy…”

“Is probably my enemy too. Just not the pressing one. The Knight’s time will come. But after we deal with the Tsaritsa,” Eidolon growled. 

They went a little further before Hannah let go of his hand and ran off to the ditch at the side of the road to spew. He went over to rub her back, though it didn’t do much with her wearing her armor. More of the thought than anything practical. 

“Ugh, sorry. I guess you must think I’m a weakling,” Hannah gasped, taking the canteen Eidolon offered her to clear the bile from her mouth. 

“No. I feel like puking most days too. There’s been too much death. I saw Grenadine get her guts ripped out by the Thief earlier. Felt like upchucking then,” Eidolon admitted. 

“Yeah. I guess. I think I have a bug or something though. I’ll get checked out by the doc when we get back. Can’t afford to have the flu when we know the Fatui are going to attack again at any time,” Hannah muttered. 

They flew the rest of the way, with Eidolon parting ways with Hannah to get a hot shower before meeting her at the mess hall for a meal, and then some sleep. He hoped it wasn’t anything serious. Even if Hannah wasn’t one of the Protectorate Elite like himself or Legend, she was still a powerful and versatile cape. Not to mention it hurt him more to see her in pain than even seeing a dozen others die. He really was smitten with her. 

The shower washed off the grime at least, and Eidolon grabbed two meals when Hannah messaged him she’d be a little late, as the line for the medics was long as always. The food was actually pretty good; while the US armed forces might be a shadow of their former selves, no one did logistics like Uncle Sam. Dinner was ham with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and a cookie. It wasn’t fine dining, but it was filling, nutritious, and not bad for cafeteria fare. 

It was still warm when Hannah met him on the roof to eat. She landed silently, her expression dazed, and Eidolon felt a pang of concern. “Everything OK? It’s not serious, is it?”

“No, I’m not even sick. Not really,” Hannah said, taking the tray but not eating. She stared off towards the Baltic, which was an iron grey under the cloud cover. The air was chilly, as it always was these days, and with the Tsaritsa’s Blizzard only a few kilometers distant, snow was an all too likely prospect. 

“Hannah? What’s going on?” Eidolon said gently, setting his tray down and taking her hand. He gave it a squeeze, and she turned, giving him a pained smile as tears started to trickle down her cheeks. 

“Sorry,” she sniffed, and Eidolon embraced her, squeezing hard. 

“Whatever it is, we’ll face it, together,” he told her, but he was feeling a rising sense of panic. Were her powers running out like his were going to do? Did she have some sort of horrible illness? Cancer? He could only imagine the worst.

She hugged him back tightly for a moment, dismissing Armory so that he could feel the heat of her body through the thin fabric she wore underneath. She shivered slightly, and David hastily took off the jacket he’d thrown out to wrap it about her. 

After a few moments, she picked up her tray and took a few bites, closing her eyes. At last, she opened them and said. “I was pregnant.”

The world seemed to stop for a moment. Then David felt as though everything was spinning, and an overwhelming sense of vertigo struck him. He gasped for breath, and tears entered his own eyes. “Were…pregnant? Oh God. Hannah. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not all your fault. What we were doing…well. We weren’t exactly using protection very consistently,” Hannah half sobbed, half laughed as she clung to him. 

“Did the doctor…did they say why you lost the baby?” David asked, already trying to mourn the child he’d never known.

“Lost…David, I just took Plan C. It was early stages. I took mifepristone and misoprostol. I’m going to have a hell of a period soon, but I wanted to-”

David shoved Hannah away, horror filling his body. “You…you took an abortion pill!? Why!?” 

She blinked at him, then anger darkened her expression. “Why?! WHY!? THAT’S FUCKING WHY!” She pointed to the storm wall, a snarl on her face. “Because we’re in an active warzone for who knows how long! I can’t afford to be pregnant now! And fucking hell, what kind of a person would I be if I brought a child into this shit?! We both know the world is fucking ending, so why the FUCK would I have a child knowing they’re all too likely to die!” 

“Why didn’t you tell me this before you took the pill?!” David demanded, anger flushing his face as well now.  “Jesus, Hannah, I’ve always been pro-life, and now-”

“Oh of COURSE you fucking are! Well it’s my body, my-” Hannah gasped and doubled over, clutching her abdomen. Panic surged in David, and he reached out to touch her shoulder. 

“Don’t fucking touch me!” She snarled, batting his hand away and straightening up. Her armor reappeared, wrapping her in alien metal. “I’m going back to the doc. They told me I should just hang out overnight anyway. Don’t fucking try and come by.”

Then she jumped into the air and flew away, leaving David alone with two cooling meals. He looked down at them, then screamed in rage and kicked the trays away, spraying food everywhere. He knelt in the mess, clutching at his head, crying out in distress and pain so deep he thought he would die. This was even worse than when he’d first taken a vial. 

My own child! She killed my own child! Oh God, what have I done?! I have sinned…

Bellowing in rage, Eidolon grabbed for whatever powers he could and rose up into the air, then barreled forward towards the storm, right at the Fatui encampment he knew was there. He arrived in moments, even as their interceptors raced to stop him. 

Snarling, Eidolon simply blew them out of the sky with a combo of powers so intense that it was like the air itself was rent asunder. More. He needed more! He drew deeply on his Geo Delusion to create a barrier about himself as he absorbed their return fire, then rained hell and death down on the Fatui below him. He should have done this long ago. He blotted that camp from existence in seconds, and he could only hope that he got the Thief in the carnage. 

But the camp wasn’t the only one. The Fatui were spread out, and they had a great many capes. Hundreds. Soon the air was filled with blasts of elemental energy and parahuman powers, battering Eidolon on all sides. He didn’t care. Couldn’t care. He traded in the Blaster powers for something more visceral as his continued usage drained them rapidly. Striker powers. 

Now he closed in on the Fatui and ripped them apart with his bare hands that glowed with power. He felt the pain as they fought back, felt limbs blow off and his flesh melt. He didn’t care. He drew deeply on Brute powers and the Geo Delusion to repair himself faster than they could harm him and slaughtered them like lambs. 

It lasted for half an hour. And then, slowly at first, but with increasing rapidity, weariness began to crawl into Eidolon’s bones, even as he took on a new suite of powers and continued his slaughter. The Fatui were in full blown retreat now. He’d killed a dozen of Anatoly’s clones, but the man himself had failed to appear, of course. Eidolon’s one man crusade was unstoppable!

But…that ache. That wasn’t just in his bones. It was in his very being. His soul was in agony. At first he thought it was just his grief at the news that the woman he thought he’d loved had just killed their child. But it was something more. All at once, it was too much. Eidolon collapsed, falling out of the sky, impacting in a snowdrift and laying there, agony in every fiber of his being. But he was too exhausted to move, paralyzed save for the spasms that wracked him. 

He didn’t even hear the soft crunch of snow, and only a pain filled haze let him see it when Anatoly loomed over him, his hook-nosed mask lowered so that Eidolon could see his eyes. 

You cause me quite a headache there. Do you have any idea how many of my men you killed? Doesn’t matter. The great Eidolon. At my feet. I will take great pleasure in killing you, the Harbinger hissed, drawing his gun. The barrel pointed right at Eidolon’s forehead, and all he could see was the blessed release in that endless chasm. 

STOP. 

Anatoly froze, his finger already on the trigger. A new form appeared, even as Eidolon was too exhausted to even blink. Out of the mist and snow, a shimmering specter appeared. 

The Ice Queen. The Tsaritsa. 

“Your Beneficence, I was simply going to-” Anatoly began, but he was silenced by a single raised finger. 

I AM AWARE OF YOUR INTENTIONS, MY THIEF. YOU HAVE MANAGED TO BUNGLE THIS SIMPLE TASK GREATLY. HUNDREDS OF MY CHILDREN LIE DEAD. 

“A small price to pay to kill the Protectorate’s greatest hero. After his death, nothing will stop me from conqueroring Riga in your name! I-”

FALL BACK AND REGROUP, MY THIEF. THIS DAY WAS STOLEN FROM YOU. MARK IT WELL. 

“But Eidolon-”

IS NOT YOUR CONCERN. DO YOU DISOBEY ME BY TARRYING WHEN I HAVE GIVEN YOU MY ORDERS?

Anatoly fixed Eidolon with a gaze so full of venom it should have struck him dead. Then he bowed, and vanished into the mists. 

The Tsaritsa knelt, and to Eidolon’s horror, the shimmer about her faded. Leaving not an ice sculpture, but a woman. She was here in the flesh. He was dead. Or worse.

“David, your grief…it is my grief. To kill an innocent, unborn child…there can be no greater crime,” the Tsaritsa said gently, reaching down to stroke David’s forehead. To his horror, his pain began to ease, and his weariness faded. Strength began to creep back into his limbs. What was she doing to him?

“How could you…” David began, then gritted his teeth. No. No information for this bitch.

“Know? The stars spoke of your son, Joseph. And of his being snuffed out,” Bronya said tenderly, kneeling in the snow. She positioned David’s head on her lap, smoothing away his sweat-soaked hair. “I am sorry. If I could have warned you…I would have. The sin is not yours, but Hannah’s.”

Tears began to flow down David’s cheeks, and he squeezed his eyes shut. “Joseph…it was my father’s name. I would…I would have named my firstborn son…”

“I know. Your filial piety does you homage, David. Would that your love had found a more worthy target,” Bronya sighed, giving him a sad smile. A hand went to her own abdomen. “As for me…I am now a god. My womb will be forever barren. My children are not of my flesh, not of my bone. And can never be so. That was taken from me before I knew the cost I paid.”

“Why…why are you doing this? Telling me this?! We are enemies!” David cried, putting a forearm to his face to try to stem the tide of his grief, but failing uselessly. 

“Only for a time. Fate has already written your story, David. I do not understand all of it, not yet. There are strange shadows there. But the time draws near when your constellation and mine shall at last overlap,” Bronya told him gently.

“Never,” David growled, struggling to sit up. He was still as weak as a kitten, and a breeze could have blown him over. If the Tsaritsa had stretched out a hand, he would have fallen back into her lap. But she let him go. “I will never…”

“You are yet mortal, David. Mortals are ever changing. We gods are not. Our natures are frozen, our Fates predetermined. We cannot fight it. Only you mortals can. Which is why I need you. Need you to alter this world’s Fate from the destruction it faces. Only you at my side can save these foolish children from their own sin, save from from killing their own children with their folly,” Bronya told him quietly. 

David’s heart seized up, and a coughing fit racked him. He fell on his hands and knees in front of Bronya to his horror. He did not wish to worship her. If he had the strength, he would have killed her. Even gods could die. 

Cold fingers reached out to him, and David tried to flinch back. Instead, Bronya grabbed his wrist, then detached the Delusion. “You have been overusing my Boon. I should have warned you. Power comes at a price. Especially this sort.”

“What…what do you mean?” David gasped, but already he felt better. Like a leech had been plucked from him, and now at last he could regain his strength.

“A Delusion taxes the body as well as the soul. If certain precautions are taken, this can be alleviated. It should have fed upon your demon instead of you, but as your demon is dead, and rapidly weakening, it has also taken a portion of its strength from you. Not so much as to be fatal, but I am afraid you have lost a decade of life in the short time you have used it,” Bronya stated, handing him back the Delusion.

Staring at the Amber gem in horror, David felt an overwhelming sense of nausea. He turned to the side, retching and heaving as his stomach emptied itself. A soothing hand rubbed his back, and for a delirious moment, he thought Hannah was there with him. Then he shuddered as he realized who it had to be. 

“Don’t, don’t touch me,” Eidolon gasped, spitting away the sick and shrugging off Bronya’s hand. 

“A hound must know the hand of his master. You will come to crave my caress one day,” Bronya told him, which made Eidolon snarl at her. “Down, boy. I speak to David, not to his Delusion. When I take this form, I must be honest with you.”

“I am not…Eidolon is who I am! Who I must be!” he snarled, backing away on all fours from mer. 

“I pray not. For if that is the case, you will sit in glory at the right hand of the Sustainer as his greatest tool in the subjugation and destruction of Mankind,” Bronya said, real grief in her voice. “I must pray you do not take that path.”

“I…what? Lies! Nothing but lies!” Eidolon snarled, but he knew. He knew. She was speaking the truth. His very soul, tattered and blackened as it was, confirmed it. 

Bronya shook her head, her expression grim. “Not between us. Never between us, David. For us, there is only Love, and Truth. One day, you shall be my Masked Specter. But you must put the mask and leash on willingly. Else all will be for naught. Come to me soon, my beloved. Come to me, that you might be the Savior you have always known yourself to be. Not the villain the world will call you. For I know your heart, David. And it is good.”

“I will never serve you,” David hissed. He turned, staggering off away from Bronya. To his shock, he didn’t have to go more than 100 yards before he exited the mists, stumbling out into a muddy, wartorn hellscape. 

He blinked, looking up at the sky, which was clear and full of stars. He could even see the Milky Way. How long had he been gone? It had been midafternoon when he’d left, hadn’t it?

For nearly an hour, he slipped and stumbled through torn up forests, until he found a bombed out village and managed to find a muddy track. He hadn’t gone far along that when a black shape dropped out of the sky. He tried to call upon his powers, but he was too exhausted, unable to get even the spark of power.

“David!? David! Oh God, I thought I’d lost you!” Hannah cried, and wrapped her arms about him. 

Her murdering, bloody arms. 

“I…’m fine,” he mumbled. “Just…shoulda done that…a long time ago.”

“You stupid, arrogant, prideful prick,” Hannah half laughed, half sobbed. “You can’t take on all the Fatui on your own and win! At least, not again. Shit, David, they’ve fallen back! More than twenty miles! It’s…it’s our first real victory!” 

But her words were becoming nothing but buzzing in David’s ears as he slipped into unconsciousness. 

The last thing he saw before his mind was overwhelmed by fatigue and pain was Hannah’s face. 

And all he could think was that his only child was dead.

But unfortunately for the world, the unborn Joseph was outlived by five of his siblings. The world would yet weep at the coming of the children of Eidolon for years to come.