Justicar Chapter 27: Requiem

Get up.

Lucien drifted in darkness, the agony of his body a distant thing. Time, reality, existence — everything seemed muted and dismissed from his awareness. He knew that he was injured and in imminent danger, and yet he didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to leave the momentary peace of his unconscious mind. The waking world held the indelible stain of his failure to stop Constantine, and it was more than he could handle in that moment.

You have to get past this.

His entire life had been an example of failure. He’d failed to be worthy of Tiberius’ growing popularity, he’d failed to adapt to the circumstances of his mother’s death, he’d failed to sustain his blooming romance with Harper, and he’d failed to properly move past the scars of his own self-loathing even when gifted with a new self and new identity. He was unworthy of his gifts. He was unworthy of his lineage. He wore Olympus’ eagle, and he felt like a con artist.

Our failures help us grow.

Even in that moment he was still failing, knowing what Morpheus had asked of him — the faith the other Hero had placed in him. He had entrusted Lucien with saving Eventide, with protecting his partner. He’d seen the belief in Sung-hyun’s eyes before Constantine had taken the life out of them forever. He’d seen the unyielding faith in the true Hero’s eyes when he’d made that request of Lucien. He had been a crying, broken child — but Morpheus had seen a hero. He’d seen the son of Olympus.

Accept who you are.

It all felt like a cosmic joke. He was a perennial fuck up, a loser that had lucked into an arsenal of godlike abilities he’d never deserved. He’d thought he could fight a veteran of the Trumpet War. A priest trained and led by Messiah himself. Even as the son of the Primus, how could he have been so recklessly stupid? Metahumans like Constantine had stood toe-to-toe with Hyperion. They’d fought under the guidance of gods. How could Lucien have believed himself at all capable of defeating that kind of power? Arrogance. It had been sheer, unbridled arrogance.

It is your duty to stop him, and those like him.

Lucien curled more into himself mentally, denying the powerful, paternal voice.

You are more than you believe yourself to be.

“Yet I’m having a conversation with myself, because that’s how pathetic I am. I’d rather argue with my own subconscious.” Heat filled him as he spoke. Radiant, stellar heat. Heat like he’d felt only once before, on the day of his manifestation after Jason had thrashed him.

You know that isn’t true.

“I don’t know anything.” Lucien refuted despairingly. “I don’t know what’s real.”

Your duty. The burden of intention. That is real. It’s time to get up, Lucien.

“It’s too hard.” The heat grew more intense, more pervasive. It saturated him.

It always is. That’s what it means to be a Hero. You do your duty despite the difficulty.

“I’m not strong enough to fight him.”

You’re more powerful than you realise. Let me show you.

“I just wanted to save them.”

Let’s do it together. You can do this. You’ve never disappointed me before.

“Who are you?” Lucien asked at last.

You know who I am. I’ve always been with you.

“…You’ll really help me?”

I will.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

It’s time to get up…

Lucien felt himself stirring.

…and face your destiny, my son.

Lucien’s eyes snapped open and the world around him resolved into immediate and clear focus. He was instantly aware of Morpheus’ lifeless body next to him, of the panicked emotions of the crowd behind him, and of the distant wail of rapidly approaching sirens. The engines of VTOL response aircraft also made themselves known to his ears, whose intense sensitivity suddenly seemed easy to manage and filter. The pain in his shoulder was gone, and the rod impaled in his abdomen no longer felt like the angry fist of a vindictive god — but instead a splinter with exaggerated levels of pain.

He braced his hands on the asphalt and pushed himself up, rising to his feet with a smoothness and celerity that he’d previously been incapable of. Gasps and shouts of alarm emanated from the remainder of the crowd to his rear, before they trailed away into hushed and almost awed murmurs. Lucien paid them no heed.

His eyes saw everything, the usual dulling of his heightened senses forgotten in favour of simply drinking in all the information available to him. It was no longer overwhelming, it was just… him. Almost as an afterthought, Lucien reached down and gripped the rod that had run him through; pulling it from his body in one quick motion.

Something drew his eyes and he glanced at the rod, seeing a layer of its existence he never had before. Angry markings dotted its surface in a text he recognised as a blend of Sumerian, Latin, and Gaelic. He didn’t pause to consider how or why he knew to recognise those languages, instead summoning the roaring intensity of the heat within his veins to dismantle the metal’s entire grasp on reality. It blew away like ash, its molecular integrity fundamentally revoked by the whim of his mind.

He blew a strand of white from his eyes and combed his fingers through his hair, looking around for Constantine. A moment later he spotted him advancing towards a wounded Eventide, too weak to escape or attempt to flee from him. The Priest seemed to be gloating, delighting in her pain and terror as he steadily made progress towards her. Somehow, despite the perspective of time he experienced in his mind, he was able to immediately calculate he’d been unconscious for perhaps ten seconds.

A frown of consternation crossed his features at Constantine’s actions. “That’s a problem.”

“Lucien?” Ty’s voice echoed in his ear, crisp and clear in a way it never had been. “Are you alright brother?”

“Yes.” Lucien answered with perfect certainty, knowing to his core he was more alright than he’d ever been before. “I have never been better. Bear with me a moment, though. I need to handle Constantine.”

“Handle him? What do you mean?”

“No time to explain, Tiberius.” Lucien said calmly, stepping forwards and idly rolling his shoulders as he advanced towards Constantine. “Just watch.”

His godbrother fell silent, though Lucien had no time to dwell on why he was so quick to listen, instead calculating instantly that his current pace would be insufficient for catching the sadistic cultist before he reached the crippled Eventide. That would have to be corrected, if he was to fulfill his promise to Morpheus. The radiance in his body seemed to move in his mind’s eye, its volume coiling around his insides and filling his veins with liquid power.

Suddenly Lucien was gone, dementing reality and taking a single step in his speed mode. Where before Constantine had been nearly a hundred metres away, he was instead suddenly in front of Lucien, who also knew with absolute clarity that he was standing with his back to Eventide. “Surrender.” He said to Constantine, whose eyes had gone from a look of surprise, to bulging with an emotion Lucien failed to properly recognise. “Now.”

“I will not!” Constantine spat. “I don’t know what you—!”

Lucien was already moving as the Priest spoke, his body shifting from its position several metres ahead of the Nigeran to instead stand directly in front of him. Constantine’s reactions seemed remarkably slow to Lucien as he took him by the throat, and casually threw him away from Eventide. Strange. He thought with the same measured, almost zen-like calm as Constantine was smashed violently into the asphalt and rolled end over end back towards the crowd.

Predicting the potential damage, Lucien moved with the same level of ease as he had to catch the cultist in the first place, his speed mode delivering him in front of the crowd in what he loosely processed was a discharge of air that forced them to shield their faces by reflex. He lifted his right foot to stop Constantine as he flew rapidly towards the crowd, lightly putting his foot down and shattering the concrete with the older metahuman’s durable body. The crowd staggered and screamed, until they realised it was merely the after-effects of his movement and not an earthquake.

Silence prevailed.

Then they roared in approval.

Lucien continued to pay no heed to their reaction, more focused on ensuring their safety as he looked down at Constantine. “Weird.” He mused as he watched him, somewhat bewildered by the entire situation. “You’re so weak now.”

Constantine spluttered a reply with bloody lips, but Lucien had no interest in it and simply bent down to grip him by the collar. “Take a minute to collect yourself.” He advised the man firmly, before the heat in his body alternated its frequency just slightly and tremendous power flooded him. Almost casually he tossed the much older man upwards and blinked as he sailed straight up and didn’t stop. “Well. That’s new.” He mused, before refocusing on the distant image of Eventide.

Another speed mode later and he knelt before the pale and injured Iranian woman, peering at the rods within her. “I need to remove these.” He said as gently as he could, injecting confidence and reassurance into his resonant voice. “You’ll feel better afterwards, though you should block the bleeding with your Aquamancy. Do you understand?”

Her eyes were wide as she watched him, and she seemed to be trembling. Blood loss was making her cold, it seemed, and the seasonal air didn’t help. “I don’t want to risk moving you, but I’ll make sure emergency services see you quickly, okay?”

“Okay.” She responded weakly, still staring at him wide-eyed as he reached out and touched each of the rods. Unlike his initial reaction to rip them out, he instead did the same thing he’d done earlier and injected his will into their construct. Like their sibling, the rods disintegrated into nothingness as their matter-binding was destroyed. “There we go.” He said gently, watching as she quickly manipulated water to form solid plugs over the impact points — and then turned it to ice. “Huh.” He said appreciatively. “Nice trick.”

“Th-Thank you, Olympus.” She responded shakily, her eyes as wide as dinner plates.

“Olympus?” He asked her with an amused smile. “I’m not my Father, but that’s a very nice compliment.” He patted her leg. “Sit tight, okay? I need to handle Constantine.”

Eventide nodded again with the same wide gaze, and Lucien returned to his feet as quickly as the thought entered his mind. “Now then, where… Aha.” His gaze was directed at the sky as he found his quarry, falling towards the ground from seven hundred metres above. He seemed on track to hit the crowd, and that was something Lucien couldn’t let happen. His eyes descended to the ground under his feet, and a curious thought occurred to him.

Lucien closed his eyes and breathed, focusing on the heat and radiance filling his veins like liquid starlight. He imagined the world like a tether, like chains leashing him to gravity’s embrace. He pictured them like visible things, like manacles around his waist and ankles. In his mind’s eye he turned that starlight into a sword, created a blade that blazed with the light of the Sun, and he severed those chains as if they’d never been. With them went his pain. With them went his fear. With them went his doubt.

In that moment he understood a fundamental truth: His only impediment had been himself.

Power rippled through his body and the magma in his veins blazed to his mind’s eye; a brilliant, pure white. Lucien launched into the air as naturally as if he were walking on the ground below, arcing up towards Constantine like an arrow launched from a bow. He caught the screaming, falling cultist by the back of the frock in mid-air and held him there, peering down at New Avalon.

The city of his birth was stunning.

He had seen it before as he leapt across the expanse, but settled in the air as he was… it was a different sight completely. The eclectic colours of the city seemed to pulse with welcome as he stared at them, and Tiberius’ voice in his ear was awed as he spoke. “Dude… you’re flying.”

“I know.” Lucien said back with the same strange, overwhelming sense of calm. He couldn’t explain it, couldn’t quantify it if he tried. It was like he could feel himself freaking out, panicking, having an overwhelming surge of emotion — but something prevented it from consuming or distracting him. It was like he was in control, but also being guided. An invisible hand on his shoulder. An unheard voice whispering instructions.

Lucien glanced up at the sound of roaring engines and blinked into the isolating beams of two VTOL response craft, their nose-mounted searchlights pinned on him and on the struggling priest in his grasp. His near-perfect eyesight told him that the pilots in the craft closest to him had been about to say something but had suddenly stopped. He didn’t quite understand the hesitation, but his relaxed mind couldn’t find the desire to spend time thinking about it. Instead he just pointed down, glancing between both aircraft. The two pairs of pilots nodded mutely.

Lucien smiled warmly and with a flicker of will he descended, hurtling towards the ground with a sudden burst of acceleration that blew both aircraft backwards as he instantly shattered the sound barrier… only to stop thirty metres from the ground with newton-defying immediacy. Somehow, and he wasn’t entirely sure how, he even managed to shatter his inertia in the same moment as he stopped his descent. It was almost like a reflex he never knew he’d had.

Constantine was dropped a moment later and Lucien lightly touched down a few moments after the older man impacted, offering a reassuring wave to the crowd to let them know everything was alright. The crowd cheered back at the same time as he detected a nearby sonic boom, and he turned his attention to the cultist again as the VTOLs touched down a short distance away, disgorging a response team of heavily armed and armoured officers and EMTs. Lucien looked up at an approaching squad of officers and frowned at them, before something clicked into his awareness.

“Stop!” He called out, though his words fell on deaf ears. He spun as the police entered within ten metres of himself and Constantine, and bit down a curse. Every gun tore free of its owners’ grasp, levitating up to point at both the police and the nearby crowd. Lucien heard safeties disengaging and chambers racking as the cultist took control of the firearms.

“Blasphemers.” Constantine spat, staggering to his feet. “Heretics and sinners. All of you. Heathens denying the glory of Messiah’s Holy Message. Why can you not SEE!?” He was spitting as he spoke, the force of his speech spraying both blood and saliva from his lips in rage. “Why can you not COMPREHEND? This is deliverance! The mundane must serve the meta! The aberrant must be wiped from the species!” He waved his arm wildly at the panicking crowd. “Homosexuals! Freaks that modify their gender! Intersex aberrations! Such deformities and mistakes must be purified!”

“Sexual orientation and gender identity don’t qualify someone for extermination.” Lucien replied far more calmly than he should have felt. “Messiah was always deluded.” He didn’t know where the knowledge was coming from, yet it poured from him. “Always revelling in the faux supremacy of his ancestors. His predilections were always oriented towards whatever idea of superiority he created to justify his own barbarity.”

Lucien had no idea what it was he was remembering, but somehow he knew every word was true. “First it was anyone who didn’t identify along his narrow perception of ‘proper’ humanity; queer people in the contexts of both sexuality and gender identity… and then it was anyone that didn’t find themselves ‘blessed’ with the metahuman capacity after he Ascended.”

Even Constantine was listening with rapt, fervent attention, his eyes holding a desperation for more that sickened Lucien. The Police were silent, almost as if they were stunned — or afraid. That he chalked up to the floating guns. “No matter how often his views were debated, or contravening evidence emerged to inform on how demented his perspectives were, he insisted on the need for ‘racial purity’. He was a bigot, and a fool, and the world is better off for his death.”

Lucien regarded Constantine with a muted surge of disdain and disgust, speaking as if to a misbehaving child. “Do not preach to me about his ‘deliverance’, you contemptible sycophant. Messiah, at least, had the capacity for true brilliance in spite of his demented and morally reprehensible perceptions. You don’t have even a sliver of his capacity. You merely regurgitate his words, with no true comprehension of the mind that uttered them.” He felt righteous judgement surge within him with a rising heat, and he let the power run rampant.

The concrete beneath his feet cracked and sundered, the ruined street cratering around them as if hit by the fist of a god. Eddies and crackles of white power snapped and popped in the air around him, while a subtle distortion of reality seemed to cause space itself to bend and ripple around his body in an aura that existence itself seemed incapable of properly accommodating. “Surrender.” He demanded with a judge’s condemnation. “You have lost.”

Please. Lucien pleaded within his own mind. Please just surrender.

A myriad of emotions rolled across Constantine’s features as he regarded Lucien, and then the police officers, and finally the crowd. Rage, disbelief, what Lucien came to understand as fear, then panic, and finally realisation. Tentative relief flooded him when he saw that realisation, and he watched Constantine with hope that he’d actually managed to reach beyond his blind zealotry. “Yes.” He uttered with a sudden and disturbing calm. “I have lost.”

The Priest’s arms lifted as in surrender, and then continued beyond waist level, rising higher. His fingers splayed open and a tingle in Lucien’s awareness told him, even as his speed mode kicked in by reflex, that Constantine was using his abilities.

“Stop him, Luc!” Ty said desperately. “You have to stop him!”

Constantine’s lips spread into a pilgrim’s smile.

Lucien moved like a bolt of white lightning, and even as the triggers of the guns started to depress his gloved fingers found Constantine’s neck…

“I win.” Messiah’s Priest declared.

…and broke it in one fierce movement.