Sophia Lane had often hoped that the world would forgive her for the sins she committed in the role of Strix Striga. Did the ends justify the ans when those ans had sacrificed soone you were close to? Or would she be haunted endlessly by the specter of what could have been?
Echidna was always going to attack Forks. Could the initial casualties have been mitigated with more preparation? Were those lives worth a shot at ending her forever?
In a way, it was easier for those watching; they never bothered to run the math. They could go with whatever they felt was right, and damn the numbers. Striga could never escape the numbers. The moral calculus of her actions would never leave her be.
At least putting down monsters was easy enough. Striga flicked her spear out of another flesh-wrought beast and kicked it aside, clearing the last of the detritus that stood between her and erging from the Spire. Echidna had filled it with her foul creations, but with the egregore defeated there were juicier targets elsewhere, and she’d begun retreating the bulk of her mass.
Striga erged into the open air—followed by those she’d recruited from below—and swept her gaze across the city. The scene was as it had been described to her over comms—and as she’d seen in Mordacity’s scrying—but it was useful to get confirmation with her own senses.
“I’m on the scene,” she said, patching into Bulwark’s comms network. “Report.”
Vanguard fielded two teams out of Forks itself, a scattering of auxiliaries across the other cities of Washington, and independent groups in Oregon and Canada. Typically, more of the organization would have been called in if a Catastrophe attack was suspected. But that would have made the enemy cautious; Echidna, knowing her arrival was planned for, might have acted in ways that disrupted Striga’s trap.
So it was just Red Team and Blue Team out fighting the horde, with both of their leaders absent. They were joined by Coterie witches, independents, the freshly-arrived Visage complent, and a handful of Syndicate witches. Striga noted the presence of that last group with suspicion, but they were a lower priority than killing the Catastrophe.
Each magical girl under her command gave a status update and their understanding of the field. So of them relayed having spoken with Coterie allies or coordinated with independents, which was standard protocol for a Catastrophe event. She visualized the battle in her mind’s eye and calmly sent out orders. A nudge here, a pairing there, a barricade on that street, a barrage to answer that block. The outbreak could be contained.
But containnt was not Striga’s goal. Containnt would only result in Echidna escaping again, as she had so many tis before.
No, just this once, Striga would let the horror feast.
The monster could glut its fill on the ample biomass surrounding the Visage Spire. The larders of restaurants, the unfortunate souls caught in the horde’s path, even stray dogs. Echidna would be repelled from the more vulnerable locations in the area, but casualties would be inevitable even with magical girls and witches operating at their smoothest. Against a foe like the Queen of Beasts, it was simply impossible to prevent every death.
Therefore, Striga would turn those deaths into a killing dagger. All she had to do was keep the horror in place until Herbalist and Lilith returned from their work on the seal.
As mahou flew about suppressing the horde’s rampage, Striga turned her gaze to the skies and chose her next opponent: the at dragon, one of Echidna’s favorite toys. Striga had killed it thrice. Each ti, Echidna brought it back with new improvents.
The first ti, Striga clipped its wings and downed it into the heart of a burning building, where it burned to death. Echidna gave it a chanism to absorb and vent heat, along with enhancing its overall regenerative capabilities so that its wings would be harder to keep broken.
The second ti, Striga went for a heart strike. Echidna’s creations weren’t necromantic, so damaging their vital organs was usually effective. Echidna patched that weakness by adding bone carapace armoring over the dragon’s torso and repositioning its internal organs to be spread farther apart.
Last ti, Striga cut off its head. That really shouldn’t be possible with a spear, but a magical girl’s weapon is really just a focus for the destructive energies they call on. What Striga wielded was not a spear, per se, but rather the conceptual materialization of so kind of idea of violence. For so, it was righteous violence. For others, glorious violence.
For Strix Striga, it was necessary violence. With that, she could cut the world itself.
She collided with the dragon and carved at its neck, curious to see what Echidna had done to protect it. So part of her found amusent in the answer: Echidna had made the dragon’s neck weaker, but severing the neck caused it to sprout two more heads, like a hydra. That couldn’t possibly be the most efficient upgrade—on the layer of mythological resonance, it was a weapon of Athena that had slain the hydra—but it did catch Striga by surprise. She carved twice more, effortlessly evading the monster’s thrashing attacks. More heads sprouted. What was the point of that? Striga flew around, baiting the dragon as much as she hacked at it. There had to be another facet to this change. What could the design intent possibly have been?
Then the dragon exploded. It happened in an instant. One second her spear was cutting through another neck, wreathed in silver light; the next, the dragon’s rotting form blazed bright green and burst. Flesh and bone scattered like so much shrapnel, but the true payload was a green-gray mist that filled the air.
Acidic. Toxic. Viral. Athena noted its properties as Striga’s body desperately fought off the pathogens invading her bloodstream and the chemicals scouring her skin. The heroine pushed herself out of range with an infusion of power to move like lightning, and then another to wipe away the superficial damage. Small prices, but they added up—had been adding up, since she used so much putting down Venus. She grimaced.
Familiar laughter scraped against her ears. A falling chunk of hydra-dragon morphed into the image of Echidna, who pointed at Striga with a half-ford arm and cackled, “The look on your face! Get pranked, dummy!”
She lted back into carrion before Striga could finish the job herself. Striga sighed.
It's not just about attrition, it's a form of psychological warfare. I acknowledge the frustration. I acknowledge the wound. Now it can be set aside. Keep moving.
Striga twirled her spear ditatively and picked out her next target. Sothing breakable.
Fighting Echidna was a unique experience, one that revolved around two things: mass and energy. As long as Echidna had energy to move the at around, she could rehabilitate damaged biomass nigh endlessly. Flesh was parted and resealed, bones broken and set, fluids spilled and reabsorbed. When the horde needed more energy, mass could be digested to replenish those essential reserves. All of the tendrils and beasts were component parts of a larger instrunt being played to perfection. From the outside, the process was almost impossible to observe clearly, hidden by the ever-shifting nature of Echidna’s vast construct.
There were quirks to it, of course, made evident by what actions Echidna did not take. She had not scoured the North Arican biosphere of life—had not swallowed forests and rivers and fields, though such was certainly within her power. There could be a psychological motivator behind that, but it was just as plausible that her power would not be rewarded by doing that. Starving cities by attacking farmland en masse was not productive for the Catastrophe.
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Productive. What a sick joke.
A new ping on her personal comm unit freed her from the endless toil of aningless, necessary violence. “We're here,” Herbalist said crisply. “Seal intact.”
“Rendezvous,” Striga replied. “Front of the Spire.”
Minutes had passed. The battle raged on. Everyone threw everything and it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Not with swords and guns and fire and lightning and dozens of gadgets and spells. The mahou fought. Echidna killed and crushed and ate. So it went.
More would be arriving at any mont, the residents of other regions hearing the call and invited to travel through Ossuary passages connecting Forks, Portland, Vancouver, and a handful of other cities in the Pacific Northwest. When they ca, Echidna would get squirrelly. She'd leave behind enough mass to keep everyone distracted, but her core—her host body—would slip away the second it started looking like an even fight.
Herbalist and Lilith floated above the courtyard outside the Spire. They both looked sick at the sight of so much death and devastation. Lilith wore it as fury; Herbalist, as grief.
“Saturation is high,” Striga’s captain inford her. “Concentrated below us, but present throughout. Erratic spread.”
Striga nodded. “Prepare it. Wait for my signal.”
“What is this?” Lilith asked, eyes narrowed at the heroine. “Your lackey refused to give details, yet insisted I lend my aid.”
“It’s a spell that might kill Echidna,” Striga said. “It won’t work if she knows what it does.”
Herbalist began tracing symbols in the air, calling power to her fingertips. The sorceress pulled a dley of items from the satchel around her waist and pressed them to the drawn symbols, fixing them in space. Poisonous flowers. Termites in amber. Scraps of rust. A single vial of fluoroantimonic acid.
Below, the mound of flesh shifted. New tendrils burst from it, studded with eyes and mouths, and they undulated at a distance, watching the proceedings. Echidna’s voice echoed through the air, laughing. “Oh, a new toy? Be my guest, Strixie! Let’s give it a whirl!!”
Striga said nothing. Lilith hesitated, then lent her power with a hiss, thrusting her hands out and channeling magic into the ritual diagram. The spell built and built, objects and symbols orbiting Herbalist as she chanted words in another language she’d chosen and given aning.
Below, Echidna kept killing. The mahou kept fighting. Striga kept running the numbers.
“Now,” she said. Herbalist collapsed the spell into a single point of shining green light. Striga caught that light on the tip of her spear, oriented herself, and dove for the mass below.
The flesh rose to et her. Tentacles and teeth, grasping hands and jutting bone. Echidna laughed. “Try your best! Play with , Strixie!”
Then, in the mont before impact, ti froze.
“My favorite mortal,” Hastur greeted warmly. “How lovely to see you again.”
The King in Yellow was the land and the sea and the firmant. She was the world, surrounding Sophia from all sides, eternal and inescapable. In the heart of a city, no stars should be visible, even in the dead of night. In the presence of Hastur, the sky glead with countless constellations, and she was the shadow of so great leviathan moving between them. A flash of yellow silk. A pallid mask. Golden eyes in the endless dark.
“Your Majesty,” Sophia replied coolly. Her body remained where it was, spear outstretched, a nanosecond from plunging into the writhing mass of Echidna. Her spiritual form drifted away from that body and took on the appearance of Sophia as she was in her everyday guise, dressed down and plain. The look on her face—a look of distrust, frustration, and betrayal—was one she would never project in her civilian persona.
Hastur laughed, voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere. “So formal! Are we not bosom companions, my dear? Have I not stood your sole confidante all these years? Your wintry reception is a dagger between my ribs. Woe, the sting of separation.”
She sounded unbearably pleased with herself.
With anyone else, Sophia would have chosen her words carefully and tried to calculate for maximum effect. With anyone else, conversation was a ga that could be won. But she knew from long experience that the King in Yellow could read her thoughts and the intent behind her words and actions like perusing the pages of a novel or script.
“You betrayed ,” Sophia said. She didn’t hide the genuine pain in her voice. “I truly didn’t think you would. Perhaps the mistake was mine, but what point was there to deceiving ? I’ve seen your power—I’ve felt it. You can make anything happen with less than a wave of your hand, so why deal in bad faith? Why bother? Just for the satisfaction of having tricked soone that would be utterly helpless to resist any move more overt?”
The King in Yellow humd. Strands of starlight wove themselves into robes of shimring gold. A pallid mask frowned. “There’s a peer of mine who would have say that you brought this on yourself—that the mistake was yours for ever extending trust to another, or so such. I find that view myopic. I’ve dealt you a poor hand, Sophia, and I won’t insult you by claiming otherwise. I am here to offer… recompense.”
Suspicion ca naturally. Surely this was another manipulation. “What do you an by that?” she asked, guarded. “What's your play?”
Several of Hastur’s tendrils ca to rest on Sophia’s shoulder. Golden eyes gazed at her in pity. “I would answer the wound I have dealt. I offer a reprieve. An end to your watch. My dear Sophia, aren't you tired? You've done enough, and so I offer you a way out of this sordid tale. You and your beloved, to be clear. Accept and I shall fake your deaths and deliver both of you from this world to another. I would grant you peace.”
Sophia’s mind raced. “For how long? Under what circumstances? And what of Mordacity, and the egregores, and the throne? You speak as if this is no vacation you're offering but a permanent exodus from this reality; an exile.”
“Yes,” said the King in Yellow. “You would leave this world, never to return. You will live a long and peaceful life on another Earth where there are no gods or monsters to threaten you. No conflict here shall affect that other world, which I shall seal against intrusion with not just my power but the blessings of my peers. There are no tricks here, Sophia. No trap waiting to be sprung. On my na, I swear it: the sanctuary I offer is true and without twist.”
A terrible tension was building in her. “What of this world? What of the war? What of—”
“What does it matter?” Hastur drifted, circling her. “Did you not wish for such an ending? Was this not your desperate plea all those lonely nights?”
It was. She had. She’d wanted happy days with Rachel. She’d wanted to stop fighting an endless war for the fate of humanity. She still wanted that, of course she did. It should have been easy to choose their happily ever after over all those stupid, selfish people.
But those people could be brilliant, too, and wonderful and kind, and they deserved better than abandonnt. Hadn’t she sworn to protect them? Hadn’t she sworn to be a hero? What would she be if she left this world to destruction or domination at the hands of gods and monsters? She wouldn’t be Strix Striga. Would she still be Sophia?
“Let soone else save the world,” the King in Yellow cajoled from behind her. “Let soone else face the horrors. Let yourself rest, Sophia. Let go of this cold, silver mask.”
Strips of yellow cloth curled in front of her as if about to rip the owl’s mask from her face.
She wanted to let it happen. God, did she want that. She wanted to cast aside her spear and take Rachel’s hand and be happy and in love together. She wanted to talk with Rachel for hours about everything and nothing—about card gas and manga and flowers and beetles, about the taste of breakfast and the sll of the sea, about laundry and taxes and what to pick up from the grocery store. She wanted to tease Rachel in ways that only made her act out more. She wanted to hold Rachel’s hands and kiss Rachel’s lips and rest her head on Rachel’s lap and never, ever have to leave her. She wanted to be comfortable and needed and loved. She wanted to rest.
It had been such an easy thing to fantasize about when she had thought it impossible. Just a little white lie she told herself every night, promising that she'd throw everything away if she ever had the chance. Dreaming about the day she could lay down her arms and live a quiet life with the girl who would do anything to make her happy. That wonderful, silly girl who saw so much in her. Surely, she had told herself, she would choose Rachel over her mission every ti.
But the King in Yellow had called her bluff.
“No,” she said, and it broke sothing in her. An illusion, shattered. “I can't leave this world to fend for itself. Not when there's still more that I can do to save it.”
Hastur sighed. “Ah, I was afraid you'd say that. You poor, brave martyr. It's who you are down to your roots, isn't it? The hero. The savior.”
“It's what I have to be,” Sophia said, and there was sothing primal and plaintive to her words.
Softly, gently, the King in Yellow said, “It is. I hope Rachel can forgive you.”
The King vanished and ti started again. Striga’s spear made contact with the enemy. Silver-green light erupted in a blaze.
Sophia buried her pain in necessary violence.
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