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Chapter 32
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The ring on her finger twisted around as she nudged it from side to side with her other hand. Gemma knew it to be a family heirloom, its sister lost to her family when a group of mages had ransacked their house one night.

Now, she and her father were helping people to escape the city, whether through the bridge, or through the cliff-side tunnel far to the west. Few people opted to go that way since the tunnel wasn’t built for cars. Seconds after she led a group of people to the area before the bridge, a car was flung through the air.

That explained the traffic, if the sheer amount of people did not.

Gemma heard the sound of a motorcycle to her left. Two people sat on it, with the driver being none other than Walter. His sight was welcome, but where were the costumed heroes? Why were the police around here so few?

***

“Do something!” the mayor demanded.

“Dear, oh dear,” Walter said. “I really do wish you’d appreciate the use of brain before brawn. Now, let’s see.”

There was a slot on the side of his bike that held a few different walking canes. He checked them until he found the one he wanted. Then he flipped the kickstand and walked into the ground with the stick and keys in hand; the latter so the mayor wouldn’t try anything.

He watched the three copies of the Vanquishiri stop bullets midair as a few police officers emptied their clips at him. Walter knew what was about to happen. A malicious telekinetic surrounded by gunfire and lots of innocent life?

“Everyone get down!” he shouted before diving to the ground, taking two people with him.

The bullets started flying. There were screams. Likely, there were casualties or injuries as well. He wasn’t too sure at first.

Walter rose up, and dusted himself off before walking forward again. The officers who had fired their guns were among the dead. This wasn’t the moment to count them all, nor was it time to stand around doing nothing.

“Enough,” Walter said. “No more.”

“And who are you to command such a thing?” the Vanquishiri’s copies asked him in unison, their shared face once belonging to Harvey Stone becoming ever clearer.

“The name’s Walter Dallevan. I went through the trouble of making this city a better place, despite my many obstacles. What do we call you?”

“You mortals do not deserve the likes of my name.”

“You’re just another ego then. I know your type. So you have duplication and telekinesis. What of it?”

“I am a god. You should fear. You should kneel, and beg!”

“Is this the eternal realm? Are you able to go there now? You are hardly better than any hero, villain, or otherwise in this Earth. You’re anything but special, so let these people go.”

“Or else what, mortal?”

***

Her rifle wasn’t too heavy when she walked around with it, but Gemma swore it doubled in weight whenever she climbed a ladder. It was almost like trying to pick up a medium sized dog that decided it didn’t want to be lifted.

Luckily, the building she climbed was only two stories tall. The buildings this close to Independence Bridge usually were, sometimes even shorter than that.

The roof was mostly flat and surrounded by the walls, each coming up to her waist. This was perfect cover while she couched to one side and aimed her rifle into the general direction of those triplets. Walter was standing among them. With a sigh, Gemma aimed for the one furthest back from the costumeless hero.

There was a good chance that they might catch her shots like they did those bullets earlier, so she waited. Walter was a man with a plan. He had to have some way to allow her to take a shot. Right?

***

“I’ll do what any man in my position can do,” Walter said. “It’s two thousand fourteen. We’ve all grown quite resourceful. In fact, just the other day, I was sent an amusing video on my phone that even you might appreciate.”

He pulled out his phone, the front facing the three copies of the man before him, and his thumb activated a video player. Walter turned the phone and quickly flipped through an internet search list while also turning up the volume as high as the phone would go. He found the file he was looking for. It wasn’t necessarily a video, in the strictest sense, but sound effects put to a moving background.

When Walter showed the video on his phone, there was a cacophony of explosions and gunshots coming out of it. The trio looked at him and the phone curiously.

Then, suddenly, one of the copies flinched and grabbed his neck. That copy’s eyes glazed over before he could successfully pull out the dart.

Good job, Gemma. My Turn.

Walter swung his cane at the copy in the middle, in the leg, and he danced like a swordsman while dealing his pre-emptive blows against the two copies who weren’t falling over. It didn’t last nearly as long as he would have liked, but they at least showed no further sign of telekinesis when only two were both awake and present.

At least, that’s what he hoped it meant by the time they retaliated by physical force alone.

One of the copies kicked him in the chest. It wasn’t terribly hard, which meant that Walter didn’t have to worry quite so much about super strength or speed like anyone might have against Nervaeus. Instead, both copies still standing took out a short sword with crescent moon shapes along the top and bottom of either hilt.

“You appear to be more interesting than I thought,” the two said, their third disintegrating and vanishing. “Do you think you can best me with your stick?”

He didn’t have to think that. Walter pulled the handle of his cane away from the body, and revealed that it was a fine, thin sword. Walter took a fencing stance to start, and noted the amused expressions on the copies’ faces.

The people behind Walter, however, were screaming and scrambling to move around the men in an attempt to reach the bridge by foot. If there was any choice Walter was going to make, it was to confront villainy so others might live.

“Thank you for letting them go,” Walter said.

“Thank you for giving me something to do while I waited for my companions,” The two responded. “Do not disappoint.”

***

She could have cheered and jumped with joy at hitting something other than Walter for once. Gemma was starting to wonder if she’d somehow hit him when aiming for a target on the other side of the city, even knowing why she hit him both times.

Now she reloaded her rifle and watched the fight that ensued below. Walter was more amazing as a fighter than Gemma had realized up to this point, and she had seen glimpses of his prowess just a few days ago. Walter used his sword to match the two twins.

Wait, where was the third one? She had a bad feeling about this, deep down. The third guy had to be somewhere. With all of the noise between the sword fighting and the people screaming to get to the bridge, Gemma could barely hear anything that was behind her. Behind!

Gemma lunged to the left, her heart suddenly pounding against her chest as she sees the third man stab the wall where she was standing. She took aim quickly, and pulled the trigger on her rifle.

However, the man dissolved into nothingness before the dart could reach him. What was that? A teleport? Wait, the first dart she shot hit him with earlier; there was no way he was still standing.

She arched her head back to see the man appear again. He swung his sword down at her.

***

His opponent was no amateur of swordplay, but Walter could keep up with the two copies of the one man. The real trick to the fight was baiting the duo away from the mass of people trying to cross the bridge on foot.

Walter slashed, he thrust, and he parried his sword. At this pace, he could go for over an hour, but he didn’t have that long if he was going to continue helping with the evacuation like other low or non-superpowered heroes.

To do that, he needed a plan to beat this Vanquishiri. To help these people now, he needed to move the fight off of the street. To help everyone later—as well as possibly himself here and now—Walter needed to gain answers, and he had plenty of questions. He hoped the man he fought was willing to provide elucidation.

“Fine form you got there,” Walter said.

“Careful, mortal,” said the Vanquishiri duo. “I might take that as a challenge to put in more effort.”

“Oh, you’re welcome to, but I’d rather you did that away from these people.”

“They’re mere cattle for the slaughter.”

“You don’t say? And why should it matter to you how or when they die? For that matter why do you want them to die anyway?”

“You mortals have shows depicting worse fates, be it against your own kind or other creatures in your realm. You’re entertained by it. You dare to ask a god why he enjoys the death and discord brought down on your kind?”

The Vanquishiri on the right vanished as the one on the left picked up the pace with his swings. Walter suspected a ruse here, and so he parried the blows to the left, kicking the man in at his front on the inside of the leg and hoping his first guess was right about the ruse.

When he turned and saw that the second man appeared behind where Walter was standing not two seconds ago, and that the tip of his sword penetrated the other man’s chest with a grunt, he knew that he was right. The copy whose face he could see flashed his eyes a sage-colored light.

A second later, the copy that was stabbed vanished, and a new copy appeared standing next to the one that stabbed him. Neither copy was angry, rather they smirked.

“It appears you can do that to get just about anywhere,” Walter suggested.

“Correct,” the duo said.

“Pardon, but do you mind me asking your name? It’s a bother keeping track of this fight without it, and I doubt you would have me call you the name of the man who last bore that face of yours.”

“You’ve at least earned that much. It is Cingeteyrn.”

Their swordplay recommenced at once. Now Walter knew to watch out for tricks and try to stay at least one step ahead of them while he was able.

Cingeteyrn said, “You seem to be quite the thinker in combat. If you showed any sign of having powers, I would consider you a worthy enough adversary to take your body, should I ever need it.”

“Why should certain abilities make a difference?” Walter asked.

“When we were cast away, wishing for oblivion, our old bodies destroyed, it was an age when we learned the truth behind the Sillunisu’s magics that trapped us. To escape, we would need new hosts, but our hosts need power of their own that we could feed upon. All it takes is one to sustain us, and we can live longer in the bodies of our choosing that way. The Circle had one of their own released much the same way.”

“Yes, I remember that, just as well as I remember disposing of your current body so his death looked more like an accident than it was.”

“You knew this man?”

“Many people did. If one of your number wasn’t wearing that mask of hers, then her own face might have been better known. She was a hero before she died.”

“Vidnyanta? Yes, I remember someone demanding that she give her body back. That would be impossible if we wanted to.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” said Walter. “This is Paragon City.”

“The ritual that restores and sustains our new bodies requires that we summon the souls that once owned these vessels of flesh. You see, we devour them over time. Their powers are sustenance. Their strongest memories are a delicacy. I understand it brings their souls nothing but pain dilated in time.”

How did Mary and Kyra survive that succubus, Walter wondered? While Cingeteyrn explained these things, Walter made sure to have his earpiece broadcasting for anyone to hear if they could. Radio signals were terrible in Shiva Bay since it had been massacred years ago, so he had no way of telling who heard it.

Walter said, again through the earpiece, “Something happened this time, didn’t it? The one you call Vidnyanta is hiding something from you.”

“She hides much from everyone,” Cingeteyrn said. “If you were as all-seeing as she is, you would know no one would listen if you rambled on about every last thing you saw.”

“And the cosmic accident that gave our friend a new body? That brought Judy back from the dead? Surely something like that would be important.”

“Enough!”

One copy kicked Walter in the chest in an angry flash. Walter slammed into the side of a truck with wooden beams along its sides. He coughed. He gasped for air. That only served to intensify a smell in the air.

He saw both copies coming for the kill at different angles, but Walter had just enough time to climb up into the truck bed. Metal struck metal. Soft body hit plastic-coated metal, loose wood, and a dirty blanket folded in one corner of the truck bed. Walter took a quick look around and grabbed a gas container, feeling some fluid in it.

Then he climbed over the front of the truck and ran for the pumps at the nearby gas station. Walter stopped a little more than halfway there. He turned, his sword ready in one hand.

Out the corner of his eye amidst the turnabout, Walter saw something swing down toward him. He used the gas container as a one-time shield, knowing he would need to discard it before the gasoline poured all over his arm. Walter met another sword with his own, and he moved hurriedly between his parries and casting the container toward the pumps.

His move could have been argued to be a mistake as one of Cingeteyrn’s swords pierced him behind the knee that Walter bent against the ground. Recoiling in pain, Walter was barely able to block another swing meant for his neck.

The sword in his leg withdrew, and Walter had a sudden challenge working to keep both copies of Cingeteyrn at bay.

Walter managed to cut one copy’s right cheek and the side of the other’s neck, pulling away from them and toward the station house, before one of them stabbed him in the right shoulder. The two of them were trying in earnest; Walter could tell.

He thrust his sword in the wrist of the copy who stabbed him, and the other kicked him away. Walter’s grip on his own sword faltered as he fell.

Grunting in pain, Walter made rowing motions to push himself closer to the gas station’s main building. He grabbed a remote from his pocket as he did so.

“You have nowhere to run, mortal,” Cingeteyrn said. “You fought well for your years, but it is time for you to die.”

Cingeteyrn’s eyes all flashed that sage color again. Oh, Walter hoped it meant that a third was out there and being beaten by someone.

“A man has to die by his own terms,” Walter said. He clicked the red button on the palm-sized remote a few times, and tossed it past the duo’s feet. He could already hear the buzzing sound with what little faculty he had left to his senses. “Yours, perhaps?”

His motorcycle came speeding their way. Three presses. Yes, that was enough.

Walter stood in one last triumphant push to stare down a god.

***

She rolled out of the way of the downswing of the blade, and swung her rifle around to strike the man’s leg. Meanwhile, all she could think was, Great, someone who can teleport and be anywhere.

Her swing wasn’t as effective as she wanted it to be, but it was something. It had to be.

The man she now fought made another swing, and she blocked it with her gun again and again as she regained her footing. His eyes flashed the same sickly shade of green Gemma saw when the trio used their telekinesis earlier, but nothing was flying around now that wasn’t supposed to be in the air.

Gemma raised her gun for another round of blocks and blunt attacks if she could manage them. Rifles weren’t built for this sort of thing, but it was the only hard object she had at her disposal, save for her ring.

“Young and foolish,” the man said.

“I’ve been around longer than you know,” Gemma said.

They moved all across the rooftop in more directions than Gemma cared to count while she used her gun to block the sword. It probably wasn’t going to be making any more shots after this with all the damage it was taking, but she was holding her own.

She slammed the back of the gun against the man’s face, he teleported away almost instantly and back again just as fast, only standing as though he never took a hit at all. He wasted no time attacking from the side he appeared on, and Gemma pushed herself to knock the blade away before it could touch her.

Weapons from opposing time periods clashed, and Gemma got more hits in on the man’s body. He showed no sign of slowing down. She needed to end this before she was too tired. She kicked him in the groin. She swung her rifle like a bat at the man’s face. He teleported.

Then his blade sank deep into her torso. Her body screamed that it hurt, but her mind begged to say the man’s gratified expression was worse.

Gemma dropped her gun. She reached up feebly at the man’s neck.

His lips severed to reveal a grin.

“Teleport from this, asshole,” Gemma said. She pulled her other hand up to her wrist, and activated the trigger on her wristband. Twice.

Both darts shot directly into the man’s neck. His eyes widened and twitched before glazing over, and the man fell to the floor.

She hunched over then. The green gems against the gold band of her ring didn’t need to flash a red light for her to know she was dying. Again.

Please no. Not yet. This can’t be the end.

A moment later, she heard the sound of an engine revving. She looked down at the road, and Walter’s bike sped off toward the gas station in the distance. Her heart beat with dread for reasons she couldn’t explain. Why wasn’t she excited?

Then the gas station exploded.

***

After a long struggle, Gemma was uncertain how she got within a stone’s throw from the gas station. She bunched the cloth of her shirt around the entry wound of the sword, knowing it wouldn’t stop the blood completely from the front, and that it did shit for the back.

No one stopped her. She couldn’t remember most of the trek. All she did know was that she had to find Walter.

The front of the gas station’s building was completely collapsed. By it were two identical corpses with all the signs of blast damage. A past Gemma was this once, long ago, across the ocean from here. Or was she the same Gemma? She still could never tell.

She searched around, her senses fading in and out, and her pain trying to pull her back down to the ground where she belonged longer ago than she ever told anyone.

A leg was sticking up from the debris of the store that ran the gas station. Gemma made her way closer to the building to investigate. There was Walter. He was unconscious, and just as bad of a shape as Gemma felt. She let her knees crash by his side. Her eyes watered.

“No. No, the world needs you. We can’t both die. Help, someone.” Her voice was too weak to scream.

Gemma looked at her ring one more time. She hated the only solution she had. One of them had to live on. She had only begun to remember her life before the ring had touched her finger. Now, it was time to decide whether or not to keep those memories.

She slipped off her ring and put it on one of Walter’s. Her blood covered their hands. Her hands wrapped around his, and she prayed with what willpower she had left. Gemma shut her eyes, feeling her energy slip away.

Then nothing. Nothing but a pool of memories, and even those were fading.