POV: Henry.

  The same purple lightning that had been present in the dream was present in reality as well. Raining down from above and raining up from below at the same time.

  Pillars of crackling light holding up the streets that had been raised up on high whilst pressing down the cloudy firmament that had been plucked from the skies.

  I looked down, or towards the direction I thought was down. Peering my head slightly from the open window.

  Clumps of gathered up dust, water and crushed-together cobblestones floated towards me. Lazily riding the spectral winds that howled across the chaotic mesh of earth and sky.

  Even from a glance, I got the distinct impression that this was a hostile alien landscape. A place where no human was meant to walk. Or even exist in.

  Case in point, half of the bloated masses floating by were bodies. Some were still alive. Changed, in ways that made my bowels churn. The lucky ones were dead however.

  Serenely gliding along with empty expressions. Uncaring of what had become of their home.

  “Henry?” The as of yet unelected Mr. Lincoln called out. “You really shouldn’t get too close to the edge. It isn’t safe.”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  “Why would being inside the building make being here any safer?”

  “[Warp the Veil II] can be used to flay reality open.” He answered. “But the few of us who have it can also use it to stabilize the world around us.”

  I looked outside again. Then back at him.

  The lean man shrugged.

  “I never claimed to be as powerful as your friend Henry. It’s all we can do to keep this place from floating off.”

  “We?”

  “Yes. Henry. We.” Mr. Lincoln clarified. “I don’t know what kind of monster your friend is, but I would’ve been overwhelmed in seconds if I was by myself. There are only four of us in this tower with the appropriate power and it’s a constant battle to keep the chaos outside from breaching the safety of the premises.” He paused. “We could really use a fifth right about now.”

  “But we’re safe so long as we stay here?” I asked.

  The man looked saddened.

  “The safety is a bit relative, but we are all doing our best. I think it only fair that you start pitching in too.”

  I closed my eyes to try and get a feel for the new powers. Only to choke on empty air as my brain was swarmed with a barrage of new and odd sensations.

  My Enhancer abilities were still there. Still holding strong against the currents and retaining their firm, inflexible shapes.

  But there were other, contrasting feelings as well.

  Wound up strings covered in some congealing mass of wriggling flesh and sinew. Like a beating organ that had formed around a cluster of balls of yarn.

  Those new aspects inside of me were clumped together with the solidity of my Enhancer abilities. All boiling as I felt a gentle, steady flame licking at their edges.

  “The strings of yarn should be the Telepath powers.” Mr. Lincoln supplied helpfully. “Each Psy power feels different inside of you. The Enhancer powers feel solid and reliable, like a foundation. The Shifter powers feel like a parasite squirming inside of you or an extra heart for some. The ringing or the thunder claps, are Projector powers.”

  He paused to let the information sink in.

  “It varies from person to person.”

  I coughed as my brain tried to process all the new abilities. The torrents of pure Psy coursing through me with a might I had never imagined possible.

  I squeezed my fingers, and the window ledge fell away like wet sand. I purposely braced myself between the floor and one of the nearby walls, and the power coursing through my legs made the floorboards disintegrate.

  All at once I sensed new things. Hearing sounds coming from kilometres off. Breaths, sighs, wails, heartbeats, the sudden cessation of heartbeats.

  All while I smelled and felt in new ways. All while my brain took in the man’s thoughts and the thoughts of everyone nearby in the tower.

  Enhancer abilities had been intuitive before. Practically second nature to me.

  This new stream of psionic potential was all wrong. Too flexible and squishy.

  It didn’t feel as if I could rely on them or control them. Quite the contrary. I felt as if the new thoughts and impressions were controlling me.

  I felt the strike of nearby violet pillar of lightning, despite the flash and the aftershock being hundreds of meters away. I felt the reverberations shaking the real and unreal parts of my core being. I felt my skin break out in goosebumps as my body was twisted into a sudden bout of dry-heaving.

  ‘Be normal.’ I ordered myself. ‘Make the world stop turning.’

  I felt one of the silent strings answer me and just like that, my body felt a little more solid than before.

  “We have to get out of here.” I gasped in shock. “I think we all have to die for it to be over.”

  Mr. Lincoln shook his head sadly.

  “Easier said than done. Your friend out there has turned a few of his victims into monsters. Dominated their minds and twisted their bodies into grotesque shapes. And then used that high-tiered [Inspiration] power on them for good measure. I don’t know if he meant it to be practice with some ability he’s having trouble with or if it was simply the byproduct of mundane cruelty, but he’s done it to enough people now that it could be weeks before this event is over and done with.”

  One of the clouds in the distant had gone from a pale grey to a pale scarlet in less than a second. The gases within remaining in a gaseous state while a few living bodies went in. None of the bodies came back out.

  Just then, I could have sworn I heard laughter coming from the nearby clouds too.

  “So?” I said immediately. Growing more and more comfortable with the idea of offing myself the more I saw of the world outside.

  “Time is stopped outside this place. It doesn’t count towards the Tutorial limit. That and none of us can really die anyway. Yeah, the whole mess would go on, but none of us would be aware of it. This fake Sully will get tired eventually and that’ll be that.”

  Mr. Lincoln looked at me. Aghast.

  “So you would leave hundreds to their fates? Without even trying to put them out of their misery?”

  I looked at him with a mix of shame and apprehension.

  “Right. Okay. I know it doesn’t make me look good Mr. Lincoln, but what else are we supposed to do?”

  I waved outside.

  “This was what Sully was capable of when he was playing with us. The man has no maximum range. Even now, he could kill us all with a thought. A thought! What are we supposed to do?”

  Mr. Lincoln’s face grew serious.

  “We can try.” He stated bluntly. “Not because it will be easy or simple or convenient. But because it is the only moral avenue left to us. We have to kill his remaining victims before we take the easy way out. That’s the only way to be sure this nightmare ends with as little damage as possible.”

  His voice turned to steel.

  “Don’t tell me that you haven’t been changed by all the new developments young man. Don’t tell me that you can sit idly by without protest and watch as everyone suffers around us.”

  He gripped my fingers.

  “None of us are merely people anymore. None of us have the luxury of giving up because we’re only small humans in a big broken system. We are not beholden to the limitations of our birth or to powers and social structures outside of our control. We are not shackled by the slow march of progress and we don’t have to stomach all the injustices we see. We have a chance to make things right. Even if it will ultimately be meaningless. We have to take that chance because allowing it to happen would be as grave as sin as if we committed the acts ourselves.”

  His grip tightened.

  “I’m not asking you to do the impossible. I wouldn’t ask anything of you that I wouldn’t be able to see through myself.”

  His eyes centered on mine.

  “All I ask, is that you come downstairs with me and see the few that remain. All I ask is that you hear us out and then act in accordance to your conscience.”

  I paused for a few seconds. Looking the historical figure in the eye.

  “You… uh. I just realized. You’ve done things. Back home. I mean.”

  He gave me a sad smile.

  “I will not pretend my hands are clean, if that is what you’re asking.” He said with a grimace. “But I acted in accordance to my conscience. As well as some information I received from people like you. There will be no war in my world. There will be no more slavery in my country. Legions of men will not have to die for the liberty and soul of our nation. Instead, there will be a few acts in government and the whole ordeal will be discussed in the newspapers for a few years.”

  He sucked in a breath.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “It isn’t what I had in mind, when I decided I wanted to help people. But we must all play with the cards we’re dealt.”

  There were only five people waiting for us downstairs.

  One of them was a muscular, yet lean tan man whose eyes were constantly wide open in abject terror.

  Another one was a pasty white man with blonde hair and blue eyes. One whose expression betrayed several Vietnam flashbacks happening at once.

  The third had to be Puffin. Sully’s new adoptive sister. Her green hair hanging in wet clumps as her face was buried into her knees. The only thing peeking out of her head being a single spiraling horn. Like that of a narwhal.

  The last two, were Vince and Thunder Fist.

  Both of whom were playing cards without a care in the world.

  “I must say, the more time passes here, the better I feel about our chances.” Thunder Fist spoke to no one in particular.

  “Even back then. On the stage, I always feared that this Sully person’s power would not be enough to rid us of the gnomes. I see now that such concerns weren’t warranted. When they come, we’ll be ready.”

  Mr. Lincoln sighed.

  “Are you still insisting that the gnomes are worse?”

  “Of course!” Thunder Fist confirmed. “Sully, as far as we know, is being tricked into thinking we are gnomes. That’s how far the System had to go in order to turn him against his fellow humans. If it was me instead of him, you better believe I’d be strangling folks like you with their own intestines. Anything less would be akin to letting the gnomes go about their business unimpeded and that would be a crime far graver than anything else I could think of right now.”

  “Vince agrees.” Vince chimed in. “Vince is really impressed with how much Sully hates gnomes. Vince even thinks Sully might almost hate gnomes as much as Vince does. Almost.”

  He nodded his ghoulish face in a sagely manner.

  “Indeed, Vince has ended best friendship with Luigi. Sully is Vince’s best friend now.”

  “How very wonderful.” Mr. Lincoln spoke softly. “Now, if we could focus on the task at hand…”

  The blonde man broke out in a bout of hysterical sobbing.

  “I won’t do it! I won’t! I won’t go out there! You can’t make me! I can’t go back! I’ll never go back!”

  I narrowed my eyes a little at that. Focusing a little more on his face.

  ‘Wait a second…’

  “Randall?”

  The man sobbed harder.

  “Do you two know each other?” The tan man asked.

  “No, Sully just told me about him. Said he saw a bunch of futures where he killed a bunch of people.” I paused to take a closer look. “Sully said Randall was a Savant. Just like him.”

  The tan man scoffed.

  “I’m not going to argue that this guy isn’t strong, but he’s nothing like Sully.” The tan man paused. “Very few people are anything like Sully.”

  He then looked up at me as I finished making my way down.

  “The name’s Stellio by the way.”

  “Henry.” I replied, offering my hand.

  “I know.” Stellio went on. “Sully used to talk for hours about you and his other friends.”

  The man paused to give Vince a sidelong glance.

  “Some of the stories don’t hold up quite as well as the others but hey. Whatever right?”

  “Right.” I allowed. “Do you know why your thoughts are sputtering out?”

  “[Block Mental Detection] He answered at once. Among other things. Powers like [Enhanced Concentration] help too. We read your status while you were out so I know you’ve got [Mindscape II]. If you read the actual descriptions of all the abilities you’ll notice that it focuses on range instead of penetration of any other power that can block you.”

  “Actually, I was more curious as to how I could turn it off.” I explained as another migraine set in.

  “Ah. Well, that’s easy. You should grab the string that’s attached to the power and cut the cord. The juice, I mean. Suppress your own Psy to that area inside of you.”

  “I’m, not sure I get it.” I confessed.

  He raised an eyebrow. So did Mr. Lincoln for that matter.

  “Vince can explain. Henry isn’t very good at handling Psy. Henry stumbled about a lot. He missed key training tips that Vince gave him during vacation.”

  Vince set down another card and giggled to himself.

  “Vince was stronger than the old Henry after just two days of being in the Tutorial. Vince got to know all there was to know about Enhancer powers and training and boosting and other things right away. So Vince knows the difference. Henry thinks he has worked hard and gotten used to Psy. Henry is wrong. Just because Henry’s been boosted by Sully doesn’t mean he’s as good as Vince or Thunder Fist.”

  Vine highlighted the point by flashing a wave of nearly-solid Psy around the room. Doing something close to what Sully had done back in the basement of the Vulgar Unicorn.

  The sudden pressure left me stumbling and reduced Randall to a hysterical crying mess.

  “Vince got boosted by the Tall Man too, but even without the boost and even while at the first Tier, Vince could have still killed the current Henry three times over. Because Vince was fast and strong and ruthless, while Henry is slow and clumsy and soft. Vince would not have fought fairly, but Vince would have won.”

  Thunder Fist nodded sagely.

  “I must say, I concur young man. I don’t mean to be rude, but your handling of your own Psy is amateurish at best. You may have the combined abilities and the levels and the high Tier, but you didn’t earn any of it. In a real fight, you wouldn’t be much more use to us than you would have been before the boosts.”

  “Except the reality thingy.” Vince pointed out.

  “Except the reality thingy.” Thunder Fist agreed. “It doesn’t matter how bad you are right now. Not in this operation. All we need you to do is focus on keeping reality stable, so that Randall can do his big bomb attack.”

  Randall’s wails redoubled then.

  “NOOOO!!! I WON’T DO IT!! I WON’T!!!!! HE’LL HURT ME IF I DO! I DON’T WANT IT TO HURT ANYMORE!!!”

  He started to rock back and forth on his seat. Cradling his head with both hands as tears streamed down his face.

  Mr. Lincoln went to his side. Calmy trying to soothe the man as he had a panic attack.

  All while Stellio looked abashed.

  “You know, I didn’t feel too bad about what Sully did to him before. Not after Sully showed us all how he’d roast us alive. But, seeing him like this now, I can’t help but think twice.”

  “Can he even do anything to help us?” I asked with concern.

  “Oh yeah.” Stellio rebutted. “Randall might be a broken husk right now, but Sully wasn’t wrong when he said he was the second strongest guy in the Tutorial. Again, he was strong enough to kill all of us together pre-boost. Even Vince and Thunder Fist over there wouldn’t have stood a chance. I don’t think.”

  “Vince can confirm.” The ghoul wearing my friend’s face spoke up again. “See how he controls his own Projector Psy. Feel the currents. Even when his body and mind are broken, the man keeps his own Psy flowing and burning like a sun at high-noon. It is an instinct. A second nature. But he cannot twist it into Enhancer or Shifter or Telepath Psy because of that. It is strong, but inflexible.”

  “Quite so.” Thunder Fist agreed. “I can tell very easily. You could tell too if you focused enough. He lets his Psy flow into Projector powers as easily as normal men would let water flow into their throats. But he does it so well that he cannot think of any other way to do it.”

  The old hero nodded gravely now. His face almost pitying.

  “He has a vision the rest of us cannot imagine. That I cannot copy. But it has left him blinded to everything else. To the truth.”

  “What truth?” I asked.

  “The truth that Psy is the way to make one’s mind control the universe.” Thunder Fist scoffed. As if it were obvious. His eyes regarding me as if I were a mouth-breathing moron for even asking in the first place.

  “From the mind and abstract reality, to the body and material reality. From the energies outside the self, to the whole of the self. All of this can be controlled and harnessed and changed with Psy. It is not merely force, but the perception of force. It is not merely strength, but the mean by which one can change one’s own body to be strong. It is Enhancement, Shifting of the flesh, Projection of energy and Telepathic domination all at once.”

  He clenched his fist in front of me.

  “Psy is potential. Raw and untapped. Only through one’s intentions and preconceived notions, does it get its colors. Without people, it is non-existent. We do not harness it, you see. We make it and we draw it from other living sources that make it. From other minds that try to think of a world that they could change or twist to their own ends. Psy is…”

  “Divinity.” Another voice cut in. “The means by which we all ascend and shed our mortal vestments. It is true, everlasting life. It is the ultimate clemency.”

  We all turned to see Serpent-Tongue slithering out from the edged corner where two walls met.

  Puffin blanched and edged away.

  Randall went deathly quiet and leapt up from his seat. Pressing himself against the opposite wall and whimpering like an abused dog. His eyes cast downwards so as to avoid even the briefest of glances.

  In contrast, the newcomer almost seemed to glow with excitement. His unnaturally puffy toad-like face reflecting the dim candlelight as if his whole body had been dipped in a moisturizing, reflective layer of oil.

  The unblinking eyes didn’t help to ease the overall eeriness either.

  They scanned the room and its occupants in odd, wavy manners. Where a normal human might have simply moved their eyes left and right, Serpent-Tongue’s eyes flicked and flickered to completely different corners at completely random intervals. Staying put in one place for only half a heart-beat before moving on to another section.

  ‘He’s not breathing.’

  I though with some alarm.

  ‘I can hear everyone else in the room breathe. But not this one.’

  It was something I’d been hearing in the background ever since waking up. Just another piece of information that was overloading my senses after my insides were scrambled by Sully.

  Mr. Lincoln’s breath had been fast, but steady. As if he were constantly trying to stay calm because it was all he could do.

  Stellio’s breath had been slow and resigned. As if he were merely playing out a role in a play. Moving along despite knowing what was coming.

  Puffin’s breath had been even slower. Utterly repressed. As if she were afraid of something or someone hunting her through the walls.

  Vince and Thunder Fist’s breaths had been relaxed. As if the ultimate outcome of our situation didn’t matter in the slightest.

  And Randall’s…

  Randall had had the breathing patterns of a nervous wreck. Someone constantly on the edge of a panic attack or a post-traumatic episode.

  None of it had registered until I saw the newcomer and taken note of how the air around him wasn’t disturbed. Despite his chest moving up and down.

  ‘He’s faking!’ I realized. My body choking on empty air as the full implications struck me.

  ‘He’s not actually breathing! He doesn’t have to! He’s moving his own chest up and down to try and seem more like us!’

  Standing there after the discovery made me feel like a small rabbit roaming around a mist-covered field. One that knew that a snake was lurking nearby, but not where it was or if it was hungry.

  I felt shivers running up and down my spine whenever those eyes passed over me.

  My muscles flinching whenever I thought it might leap to attack.

  “Relax Henry.” Vince spoke up. “Serpent-Tongue is not a bad guy. Serpent-Tongue wouldn’t hurt you. Serpent-Tongue cares too much about what Sully thinks and the real Sully would flay it alive if anything happened to you. Serpent-Tongue has said so himself. Serpent-Tongue cannot lie, so Henry should know it is the truth.”

  “How do you know?” I snapped. More than a little irritated by this point.

  Vince shrugged.

  “Vince can read his Psy like an open book. Serpent-Tongue is like all Intruders. The body you see there is not made of meat and bone. It is all ideas and it must keep the ideas honest if he wants to stay.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “That makes absolutely no sense.”

  Thunder Fist coughed.

  “It really does when you stop to think about it young man. Intruders come from a place where reality is composed of ideas. The concept of hiding those ideas is alien to them, because it would change the composition of their being. They must stay true to themselves in order to keep existing because staying true to themselves is what allowed them to exist in the first place. The body you see is made of solid Psy possessing other things. It does not hide what it is because it cannot hide what it is. It must wear its own intentions on its sleeve in order to manifest and return to Pandemonium in one piece.”

  “Ask Sully if you don’t believe Vince.” Vince offered. “If anyone should know, it is Sully.”

  “Sully told me plenty.” I bit back. Now starting to get sick of their patronizing tone.

  “He never mentioned that Intruders can’t lie.”

  “Oh master Henry.” The Intruder in question spoke up. His limbs going above his head in a half-hearted imitation of how a human would display exasperation.

  “Why would this humble servant lie? Hmn? What reason could this worm have to tread upon his own beloved master’s dearest friend?”

  The red-robed thing pretended to walk towards me. Only now I could see that it was going through the motions. His actual body floated just a few centimeters away from the floorboards. Not leaving any footprints, not making any sound.

  “Why, the whole reason me and my fellows are here is to save you all. To right these grievous and outrageous actions the System has taken.”

  His arms shot upwards and they wrapped around my body before I could react.

  “You may doubt many things, master Henry. You may doubt your allies, your lover, your parents. You may doubt your friends and the compliments of sycophants.”

  He pulled away slightly. Showing me his face and his best impression of a human smile.

  “But you must never doubt your best friend. My Master. The one true Master, would never do you wrong. He too wears his deepest desires on his sleeves. He cannot go against his own nature. So much so that the System needed to trick him in order to turn this foul imitation against you all.”

  I sensed an incongruity then. A piece of information that didn’t add up.

  “If that’s the case, then why aren’t you trying to kill us? Why aren’t you following the fake’s orders?”

  Serpent-Tongue only laughed.

  “Why, because I know he is a fake. Master Henry. The power that my dear lord possesses may be replicated, if crudely, but his realm cannot be copied. This is because a copy of those ideas would simply become the same idea. If the copied idea knew that it was a copy, then it would be a completely different idea and would not be able to enter our blessed section of Pandemonium. Nor could it be summoned by the foul imposter.”

  He wagged his finger as if to lecture me. Only, he wagged it sideways instead of up and down. Making it obvious that he wasn’t that familiar with human customs.

  “No, my dear Henry. No. There cannot be two Coffin Kings. There cannot be two Tyrants in Pandemonium. As master Vince so eloquently put it, I cannot be anything else than the idea which formed me. The same applies to all other Intruders. Including my beloved Master’s shadow.”

  He nodded gravely.

  “There can be only one.”