The Loop

Darkness. Darkness and silence. Neither one complete, but both pressing enough to make it hard to breathe, hard to think.

The wall of shadow hadn’t pushed in far enough to actually be upon us—not yet—but as the inner edge had moved toward us, the outer edge had been moving outward, and the effect of that had been that the whole thing had become thicker, denser, letting less light from the outside world in. I couldn’t see as far, and outside the occasional burst of light from Christine or Flare, I was generally unaware of where any of my friends or allies were, or of what they were doing, or of how they were holding out in their individual fights.

And on top of that, the air itself seemed thicker, denser, more suffused with something dark and sinister. It made sounds die out quickly, and the farther they traveled, the more they became muffled, muddy, and indistinct. I heard shouts, voices, but making out words or even telling whose voice I was hearing was impossible unless I was almost right on top of them. The sounds of powers being activated, explosions, crashes, impacts, and all other manner of chaotic battle noise was equally muffled, so that I seemed to exist inside a small bubble, surrounded by a constant hum of garbled static that only occasionally sounded like anything I could recognize or identify.

Pantheon’s projections didn’t seem to have any trouble navigating through it all, though. They came upon me, emerging from the darkness one-by-one or two-by-two, heading right for me. I tried to reach out to them with my telepathy, but their minds were nearly empty, containing only fragments of their master’s voice, whispering commands to them. I could, however, sense them with my telekinesis, and I could feel my allies with both my powers. Those alone of all my senses were unhampered by the shadow that was closing in on us. And on those alone I had to force myself to rely.

Chris, I sent out, feeling her mind a little ways off to my left. Are you doing alright?

She sent back the mental equivalent of a grunt, and I saw through her eyes for a second as she blasted a projection that might have been Adversary.

Still fighting at least. More than I could say for Shannon, who had gone down swinging, but had been ultimately knocked unconscious by a projection and dragged away toward the edge of the shadow dome.

Can you get to Virtuosa? I asked. Can anyone?

After Oneiros and Peregrine’s failed attempt to get us all out, when this new phase of the battle had commenced in earnest, the projections had made a concerted effort to separate us. They'd been successful, and now I couldn't feel everyone anymore, and some of those I could feel were right at the periphery of my power’s range. It was disorienting and disheartening and I was sure that was the point.

I couldn’t be certain if it was too late, if Shannon was already inside the shadow—my power didn’t reach that far—but I knew we had to at least try to get to her. The problem was, I was currently engaged in a fight with a projection of Gethsemane, who was using his power to create sub-projections of all sorts of wicked entities, and I couldn’t get free of them long enough to search through the darkness for Shannon.

I think she just passed me, came the reply from Mr. X, but I don’t think I can get to her. I looked in his mind and saw that he was engaged with four or five projections, including one of a giant horned man. He was holding his own, though, using his power to selectively turn off the powers of whichever one was closest to him, shooting at them with a gun he'd evidently picked up off the ground whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Anyone else? I asked.

I’m on it, came the mental reply from the last person I’d expected: Trojan. The beam of shadow that had struck him through the heart hadn’t had any lasting effects. Indeed, it seemed it had only been a ploy by Pantheon to shut him up temporarily. For a moment, we’d all been afraid that it would allow him to absorb Trojan somehow, to consume him like he’d done to the other Hypes underground, but that didn’t appear to be the case. And he’d turned it off almost as soon as he’d used it.

I sent the thought to Mr. X, since he was the resident expert on all things Hype-related, along with a question: why wouldn’t he maintain that spear of darkness? He did for Oneiros and Peregrine, and they’re still out of the fight.

It was true, they were actually the two allies closest to me at this point, although they weren't much help to me as they still had jagged bolts of darkness spearing from the sky straight down through their heads, freezing them in place with looks of shock and distress perpetually fixed on their faces.

Focus, he replied. All powers require focus. I can only focus on one target at a time, you have a limit to how many things you can move at once before your control becomes negligible. Everyone has limits to their focus, and those tend to be the limits of our powers. Pantheon’s grown tremendously in power, but he isn’t infinite. There’s still a limit to how many things he can do at once, and keeping Trojan out of the fight obviously wasn’t his top priority.

As if to confirm what he’d just said, I barely dodged an attack from a minotaur-esque demon that was harassing me with a pitchfork because I was too focused on the mental conversation. I knew that Gethsemane’s creations were only in my head, that they couldn’t really hurt me, but it was really hard to convince my brain of that fact when a very real looking and sounding demonic entity was coming at me with everything it had, breath snarling and steaming out through a hideous, dripping, furry snout with a golden ring through the nostrils.

I hadn't been around when the rest of my team had fought against the real Gethsemane, and I'd hardly had time to discuss it with them afterwards because we'd all jumped from one crisis to another so quickly. It was hard to believe all that had happened just two days ago.

Chris, I thought. How did you beat this asshole?

Use your powers to push, she replied. The hallucinations won't really be affected, even if they appear to be, but the real Gethsemane will be. Or, in this case I guess, the shadow projection of Gethsemane. He will be. I think.

Very helpful, I thought. But it was all I had to go on, so I gave it a try, pushing against every figure around me with my power. The demonic entities moved slightly, but in a way that was delayed somehow. Like their master sensed what I was trying to do and was causing the imaginary creatures to mimic a proper response to try to fool me. I flew over their heads, which was difficult as some of them were twenty feet tall, and searched in their midst for one who was moving differently, reacting in a more real way. Like all of Pantheon’s projections, Gethsemane was solid black and textureless, but his hallucinatory helpers weren't, and he had cloaked himself in the image of another demon as soon as he'd started fighting me.

That I could feel the imaginary demons with my telekinesis at all was interesting. It showed that his power tricked or created hallucinations in all senses, even ones that were tied to powers. Still, using Christine's advice, I quickly found the one I was looking for. A demonic entity, not so distinct from any other, neither the largest nor the smallest. Ten-feet tall, dark red, charred skin, forked tail, a face that was somewhere between human and goat, and large curving horns. When I pushed against it with my power, it shifted backward in a slightly delayed motion like all the rest, but it revealed for a moment another figure standing within its leg: the solid black projection of the priest, Gethsemane.

Gotcha, I thought, crushing the projection down into the pavement with as much force as I could bring to bear. It squealed and gurgled and then was silent, breaking apart into wisps of smoke and taking all the hallucinated demons with it.

Where are you at, Trojan?

No reply was forthcoming, so I started circling through the air in a progressively larger radius, hoping to sense his mind. I wasn't certain that having him fight alongside us was the best call given what he was capable of, but we needed all the help we could get. At least I'd put mental protections around everyone present to make them resistant to his manipulation. Curiously, Ms. Y should have been immune to his power anyway, at least if he got close enough, but she'd been as much on his side when we'd first arrived as anyone else. It bore further contemplation, but in the middle of a fight for our lives wasn't the right time for that.

Finally, I located Trojan. He had concentrated all the special matter that he could manipulate with his power into a giant sword, at least twice the length of his body, and was using it to hack at the borders of the dome. Even as the dome collapsed inward all around us, the parts he was hitting were drawing back, moving with an organic fluidity, hissing with pain and rage.

“Your sword can do that?” I asked.

“The matter I control, it's immune to all powers and can cut through or affect all things protected by powers. That's actually my primary power, and it's what makes me a PAP Hype. If I turn it into a shield, or armor, I'm largely invulnerable against Hypes. If I turn it into a weapon, no Hype is invulnerable to me.” He continued hacking and slashing as he spoke, treating the massive sword as if it weighed no more than a small twig, swinging it in massive arcs and overhead blows.

“So the whole convincing-people-to-do-what-you-want thing?”

“Just a secondary power. Useful. Very useful. But when it comes to fighting those who won't be convinced, this is my real power.”

There were projections milling around, but they were keeping their distance, clearly wary of the sword and what it could do.

“Still,” I said, “you can't possibly hope to destroy the whole dome like this …”

“Not my goal,” he said. “I'm just trying to cut in far enough to get your friend out.”

“She's in there?”

“Sorry, I couldn't get to her fast enough. I'll get her out though, I promise. Just keep them off of me while I work.”

“Keep who off …” I trailed off, looking around and seeing the mass of projections that were standing around us, keeping their distance, had tripled in number. Not keeping their distance out of fear, I thought. Just making sure they have enough power to overwhelm us.

Not too far away I saw the glare of the laser cannon that Flare had somehow acquired as its twisting beam cut through a swathe of projections, temporarily lighting up the area around it enough for me to see.

Flare, I thought, reaching out and just barely touching his mind at the edge of my power’s range. Get to me if you can.

I'm with Quintain, he replied. She's hurt, but I'll get her to you.

I reached out again, trying to find her mind, surprised that I could have missed it. I felt it now though, vaguely, like a dimming lightbulb that had been turned all the way down. Unconscious, I thought. Barely hanging on. I reached out with my telekinesis and started dragging her limp body toward us.

Does that help? I asked.

Yes, thanks. Wasn't sure how I was going to lift her, to be honest.

I might have to drop her if these things start moving in, I thought.

They weren't that far away, but this close to the edge of the dome I could feel my power starting to ebb away insidiously, like someone had turned the dial down just a notch or two, just enough that I wouldn't notice if I wasn't paying attention. Still, I thought I could get her to me before the projections attacked.

I was wrong.

All at once, as if reacting to some unspoken command, the projections that had been amassing near us charged. We were standing now in a sort of alcove, cut off from the main part of the shadow dome except for a small opening, large enough for a few projections to run through. But of course, they didn’t need to run through the opening at all. They could pass in and out of the walls of the shadow, and so they approached in a line, moving unerringly toward us in perfect sync.

Behind me, Trojan continued to swing his sword, pushing the walls of shadow back and digging us deeper into this outcropping of the dome. I could see the edges of the wall swirling, pulsing, vibrating angrily as though they wanted to push in on us, but something—fear of his sword, maybe—kept them at bay.

The projections arrayed against us were varied, but without color or surface details, it was difficult to ID them. I didn’t see anything resembling priests’ vestments, thankfully, but there were a variety of shapes, and I didn’t recognize any of them. No horned man, no Adversary, no Gethsemane. Maybe some of the other Hypes who had joined the nascent Soldiers of Calamity. The rest of my team had fought them in New York when they were on Adversary’s trail, but by that time I’d already been back in Texas, fighting my way though monstrous dream creations to save my sister. It had been a busy few days.

Suddenly, one of the projections flew forward, and I finally had to drop my hold on Quintain’s unconscious form to redirect all my focus on the enemies in front of me. The projection whizzed by me, nearly grazing me with a translucent, ghostly looking arm as I used my power to push myself out of the way. It flew straight at Trojan’s back. I pulled at it with my power, managing to slow it slightly, giving him just enough time to reform some of his bronze-y material into a square shield at his back. The projection crashed into this shield, ghostly arms crumpling with the impact. I heard a sound like twigs snapping, and the thing let out a terrible howl as it dissipated.

Two more projections—a stooped looking man and a woman who must have been at least seven feet tall—charged at me. The stooped figure seemed to unfurl as he came toward me, spine curving around backward impossibly far, until the back of his head touched his knees and his entire upper half seemed to shrivel as it continued curling back into itself. A new torso and head sprang up from his waist as the old ones folded infinitely away into nothing. The new upper body was well-built, with incredibly long arms. He swung one at me and it left a sort of shimmering red after-image in the air, which seconds later caught fire.

I dodged his first swing and pushed against him, creating a little more distance. Not enough, though, as I failed to account for just how long his arms were. He caught me with a grazing strike on his second swing, and I felt the flesh of my chest erupt in pain in a straight line running from the bottom of my ribcage to my shoulder. Again, the air caught fire shortly after his hand had passed through it, but this time, the line on my chest burned too.

I stepped back, breathing hard, and snapped my attention to the giant woman just before she smashed Trojan’s head in with fists that now resembled hammers. I held her arms aloft with my power, struggling against her immense strength, and then shot a discarded combat knife—probably left by one of the guards we'd fought earlier—that was lying on the ground at her, catching her in the neck and destroying her. In the time it took me to do that, the projection of the man had swung again, once, twice, three times, catching me again on the final swing, this time opening a small line on my left leg, just above the knee.

I switched my focus back to him as his new torso started to fold backward as the first had done, curving in on itself until it disappeared from view completely. Again, a new torso emerged, growing rapidly. This one had shorter arms, ending in what looked like giant gun barrels. As soon as his new body was fully grown, he leveled one of the arms at me. I pushed the arm up with my power just as it fired some sort of dark gray ball of energy that flew over my head and struck the shadow wall behind me with a deafening explosion. Before he could take aim again, I drew the knife I’d used to dispatch the woman back from where it lay on the ground and put it through the side of his head. I half expected the head to just fold back on itself and the projection to sprout a new one, but instead he fell to shreds and wisps of smoke, wailing an inhuman wail all the while.

But six more were upon us.

You getting close? I thought.

I heard a woman’s voice, screaming, just on the other side of the wall he was cutting into.

Does that answer your question? replied Trojan.

“Shannon,” I muttered, and turned my attention back to the fight.

The six that were surrounding me now were all identical, and they moved with an uncanny coordination, more than that which had been exhibited by the rest of the projections, more than could be accounted for by their being centrally directed by Pantheon’s mind.

No, these six moved as one entity, one organism. Just split into six bodies.

They weren’t duplicates, though. I remembered fighting a woman who could split her body into multiple copies in my last life. This wasn’t that. My first observation had been that these six were identical, but upon closer inspection that wasn’t the case. They all shared the same general build and were around the same height, but otherwise, there were differences. Some appeared to be men, some appeared to be women, with most it was hard to tell given the solid black coating that was their skin, their clothes.

What’s more, when I pushed against them with my telekinesis, they pushed back. I’d never known anyone else to use telekinesis. Certainly not since I’d gained powers in this life, and I couldn’t recall any instances of it in my last life, either. But undoubtedly that’s what they had. I could actually feel their power snaking through the air, feeling around them like mine did, pushing and prodding. And I felt something else, reaching toward them with my telepathy, expecting to find their minds as empty as the rest of the projections, I found instead a sort of rudimentary network, a passing of thoughts and commands between them. They had telekinesis and telepathy, but it seemed like both were more limited than my own. Their telepathy only reached within their group and no further, and their telekinesis was individually almost negligibly weak. The problem was that the telepathy allowed them to coordinate, and all of them focusing on one thing—my arm for instance—and pushing at once was far from negligible.

It took everything I had just to keep them from bending my arm back and snapping it at the elbow, and in the meantime, they’d launched themselves into the air, more floating than flying, and moved as a group over my head and around me, enclosing me completely in a circle. They reached out their arms toward me, and in each palm a tiny flame erupted.

What the fuck? I thought. Pyrokinesis, too?

The tiny jets of flame jumped together, joining with their closest neighbors, then linking together again and again, growing stronger with each jump as they progressed toward me. I launched myself into the air as the jets of flame converged on the spot where I’d been moments before, but their power caught me in the air and started dragging me back down.

The knife, I thought. I had a brief flash of memory of myself fighting many opponents at once, maneuvering several knives in the air while flying gracefully myself, never losing awareness of where any of my enemies were or what they were doing. How did I accomplish that? How did I have so much focus?

When the immediate, pressing issue was over, I resolved to start working my way back to who I'd been, to that future me who had everything figured out. Well, everything except how to avert the apocalypse.

For now, I grabbed the knife with my power once again and brought it into the back of one of the projections, twisted it out and immediately flew it into the side of another, digging in deep. They were still dragging me down, but as their telekinetic pulling increased, the flames sputtered out. And as I dispatched them one at a time, their hold on me got weaker.

Just as I started to pull away, getting above them and overcoming their combined power, a gust of wind hit me with such sudden and unexpected intensity that I lost my focus on the knife, and barely managed to keep myself aloft. As soon as I got my bearings, another gust of wind hit me. Or rather, it felt as if the same gust of wind that had blown by before had changed direction suddenly and circled back on me. Is that them, too? I thought. How many tricks do they have up their sleeves?

I tried to focus on the knife again, to get it moving, but the wind was battering me relentlessly in the air and it was all I could do to stay upright. I saw two more projections step around the group below who were harrying me and head toward Trojan. Nothing I could do for him right now, though. I could hardly help myself.

I saw another two projections step into the alcove Trojan had dug out. Replacements for the two Hypes I'd just destroyed, the ones who seemed to share power and whose minds were interconnected. As they rejoined their comrades, the wind got even more intense.

The two who had been approaching Trojan reached him and he turned to face them. As he did, the wall of shadow he'd been cutting away started patching itself back together, and Shannon's cries for help became weaker.

A gust of wind unlike anything I'd experienced so far tore at me from above and knocked me, spinning, to the ground below, where the hive mind projections were gathered, staring up at me with expressions which, even though I couldn't see their features clearly, I interpreted as hungry.

I hit the ground, managing only to soften the impact slightly with my power, and lay in a heap, panting hard as they closed in around me. My general policy of non-action had never seemed more attractive than at that moment. Why did I get involved in any of this? Why did I even touch that fucking orb?

Shannon, I thought. I'm sorry. The only point of light in all the darkness I felt as they fell upon me was that at least I'd gotten Angie out. But that was a small thing, barely felt amongst my feelings of dread, guilt, anger, and pain.

And above all the fear that all I'd managed to do since coming back in time was to make things worse. My actions had allowed Pitch to live, my interference with Angie had let a piece of him fester in her mind, and in my attempts to right that wrong, I'd brought Shannon back to him, giving him all the pieces he needed to ascend, to become something more, to become Pantheon.

The creatures weren't even using their powers on me now. Instead, they were gathered around me, striking me relentlessly with fists and feet. I curled myself into a ball, not even trying to reach for my power anymore, only trying to make it hurt less.

Maybe next time they'll pick someone better to go back in time. Someone who knows what they're doing. I was never cut out for this shit.

It should have been my last thought. I fully expected it to be. But then …

——————

Light. Light and noise. Overwhelming my senses. Pressing in on me and forcing awareness back into my brain, giving me time to think, to breathe.

I opened my eyes and saw Flare, standing triumphant in the opening to the alcove and holding his laser cannon high, releasing an unrelenting blast of curving, twisting light into the space with a deafening roar. Not just from the machine—though that was loud enough—but from his lips. A shout of rage. A battlecry.

I gained my feet as the projections who had been beating me mercilessly melted away under the onslaught and joined him in his cry, added my own voice, hoarse and gurgling through the blood in my throat and mouth, to the din.

Quintain had awakened at some point and was standing behind Flare, facing outward and launching projectile after projectile at any projections that started to approach. She still looked shaky on her feet, but her power at least was unaffected.

“Why are you both yelling?” she asked, her voice tiny next to the cacophony of battle and rage.

“Feels good,” I panted. “Feels really good.”

She shrugged and started screaming too.

Soon I felt others approaching and Trojan resumed his work, cutting delicately now because Shannon was so close. A broad, careless swing might take her head off. He reshaped his sword into two smaller blades with precision, rather than destruction, as their main purpose.

Christine was with us, just outside the alcove, and Mr. X and Ms. Y were right behind her. The only ones not close to us now were Oneiros and Peregrine. I wasn't sure what we could do for them, but we'd figure it out as a group once we had Shannon back.

Trojan made a quick cut, curving his blade in a circle and causing the shadow there to melt away, revealing a hand. He cut further up, releasing first an arm, then a shoulder, then a neck and head. Shannon.

Shannon, smiling. Her fencing mask had gone missing, but my brain hardly registered that.

Smiling?

I hadn't meant to broadcast the thought, but I was so taken aback by the unexpected expression that I must have sent it out to those around me.

“Yes, smiling,” she said. “Because I know how to beat him. He shouldn't have caught me again. He should've known when to quit, but he couldn't let go of his prize.” She spat on the ground as she said it.

“What do we do?” Christine asked her.

“We need Oneiros and Peregrine,” she said, but with his help—” she indicated Trojan “—we should be able to cut through the tethers and free them.”

“Well once we have them, we can escape,” I said. “We already knew that.”

“Not escape,” she said. “Win. Beat this motherfucker. Deny him what he wants. But we have to act fast, once the dome finishes closing in, we'll be fucked.”

“Then let's get moving,” said Trojan.

We turned toward the exit to our little alcove that Trojan had cut out with his sword and moved as a group toward it. It was oddly silent, again. No projections moved against us. Nothing moved at all, besides us.

“He knows what we're planning,” said Shannon. “Hurry.”

We needed no further prompting. As if on cue, we broke out into a jog, then an all out sprint. Tendrils of shadow started spearing down from the roof of the dome, striking like black lightning around us as we weaved and zig-zagged our way toward the center of the dome, where we'd left Oneiros and Peregrine. Trojan supported Quintain, who looked at risk of collapsing at any moment.

We got closer and suddenly there they were, appearing out of the darkness ahead of us. And they weren't alone.

Between us and them were at least forty or fifty projections, some I recognized, many I didn't. The walls of the dome seemed to be rushing toward us with some renewed vigor, faster than ever before.

The laughter that came from everywhere and nowhere began again. But there was a hint of something else in it now. It wasn't just amusement.

It was rage.

And if we were making Pantheon angry, then we must have been on the right track.

“One last fight,” I muttered. Of course it couldn't be simple.

“Everyone ready?” asked Christine.

Nervous nods all around.

“Let's do this,” said Trojan, and without further clarification he led the charge.