Heretical Edge

Right, okay, so Fossor was here. Not only did we have to deal with this Saign guy, but the person who was obviously his boss was one of the last people I had ever wanted to see breathing again. Wait, actually I'd call him the absolute last person I wanted to see breathing again. He was dead and he needed to stay that way. Yes, yes, time travel, this was before all that, yada yada. That didn't actually make me feel any better about the fact that I was looking at this fucking bastard standing around with working intestines and all I wanted to do was reach in and rip his spleen right out through his goddamn--

"Flick?" Sarah whispered, giving me a little shake to snap me out of what was actually a pretty decent daydream of just what I wanted to do to that fucker. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Yeah, we can't kill him," Sands put in with a visible grimace as I glanced at her. "I mean that in both senses of the word 'can't.' Not that your upgrades and all that aren't pretty awesome, but if it took a whole damn army of some of the strongest people in the world to kill the creep last time, there's not a chance in hell just the three of us could pull it off now. Plus, you know, the other meaning of can't. He still has to live to do all that."

"We are very aware-conscious of the fact that he must survive and continue to exist long enough to accomplish all of the evil-vile-horrific acts that made all of us hate him so much in the first place." That was Wordsmith, of course, taking over while I was busy mentally screaming in a corner for a few seconds. "But that does not truly make it any easier or simpler for us to accept."

Sands gave us a brief look, squinting before giving a little nod. "Right, sure, that's fair. But let's focus on the part where that Necromancer we can't kill, for multiple reasons, is squatting on top of a bunch of innocent people he's probably planning on sacrificing. Not to mention that whole part where we still don't know where this rift that you're supposed to jump through is. A rift, I might add, that you have to jump through if we don't want the fucking Fomorians to turn into gods."

Before responding to any of that, I summoned Seth and had him keep an eye on Fossor. Not by getting any closer, of course. I wasn't that stupid. Instead, I just had him look through the gun's scope-portal thing. There was no way I was going to risk that bastard sneaking up on us now.

With that done, I turned back to the others and grimaced. "Yeah, we've got a lot of problems. So thanks for that, I had no idea the situation was so serious." As soon as I said it, my hand was already waving. "Sorry, I'm sorry. I just-- I know. I know, we have to deal with this. We have to save the people over there, stop Fossor from whatever he's doing, find this rift, and then jump into it. It's all on the list right up here." I tapped my forehead, "You guys got anything else we should add?"

For a second, the twins just exchanged quick looks, before Sands hesitantly asked, "Can we save those people? I mean, if Fossor was behind the abductions, it's pretty unlikely that they ended up being saved by anyone else before we time traveled back here. So won't us stepping in, just assuming we even could manage to do anything useful, actually break the timeline?"

Instead of answering immediately, I gazed up at the sky. I thought about it, along with so many other things. Eventually, I plucked the stone Ehn had given me from my pocket and used it while looking through that scope-portal once more so I could study those people. Fossor, of course, glowed when I looked at him that way. He was important to the timeline, so he couldn't die. Obviously. As was, annoyingly, Saign. We couldn't actually kill him either. But as for the others…

"They're not important," I announced, after taking a moment to explain what the gemstone did so they would know what I was actually talking about. "Except for Fossor and that Saign guy, none of those people affect the timeline in any meaningful way. Not a single one of those hostages glowed at all. Which probably means you're right, no one saved them and they died right here."

I let that sit for a second, giving the twins time to start to process my words. Then I spoke even more firmly. "But here's the thing, fuck that. I don't care. I don't care if they weren't important enough to save. I don't care if none of them matter to the timeline. They matter to me. I don't know them, I've never seen any of them before and I'll probably never see them again. I doubt any of their lives will affect me in any way, whether they live another five minutes or eighty years. And I don't care. I'm going to go out there, I'm going to risk… everything, and I'm going to save them, even if it means going up against Fossor himself. Because it's the right thing to do. Because if we can stand by, see someone like Fossor getting ready to do horrific things to innocent people and just walk away from that, why the fuck are we even here? Why are we doing any of this if we can walk away from people like that? I won't. I'm not going to. Not this time. I'm gonna help them. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, I'm not abandoning those people."

We're on the same page here, right? I sent inward, my hands clenching just tight enough to hurt.

Yes--indeed--confirmed, Wordsmith assured me. We are in agreement. All of us are on board and concur. This is Fossor. We couldn't live with ourselves if we allowed this tragedy to happen.

Swallowing back the feelings I was having right then, I focused on the two girls physically in front of me. "I know it's probably stupid. I know it's dangerous. But I still have to try. I just-- I have to. I can't let myself be the sort of person who can walk away from it. I won't be that sort of person."

"I won't either," Sarah put in, straightening up as she folded her arms protectively against her stomach, probably to ease the violent rumbling that was no doubt running through it. "I'll help."

"Oh please," Sands retorted when both of us looked at her. "As if I'd just stand back and let you guys run off without me to risk your lives by yourselves. My sister and one of my best friends?" She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before adding, "Besides, I want to save them too."

So there it was. We were going to throw ourselves not just at Saign and his people, but at Fossor himself, to save those people. It was possible none of this would even matter when it came to finding that rift. Maybe none of these people even knew where it was. Granted, that wasn't exactly likely. It would be a pretty big coincidence if whatever Fossor was here for didn't have anything to do with that rift. He'd almost certainly sensed the energy. And yes, the thought of that fucker having access the dragon-bonded power that was bouncing around through the thing scared me almost as much as the Fomorians having it. We couldn't let that happen either.

Managing a weak smile, I let a shiver run through me before speaking again. "Okay, so we have t-- no, we're choosing to do something about this. But we're gonna need to be smart about it. I might have both Fossor and Manakel's Necromancy, but he has a hell of a lot more experience than I do. In a straight-up ghost fight, he'll beat me, no question. I can probably do a lot more to stall and weaken him than he's used to, especially if I take him by surprise. But we need more."

"We need a plan," Sarah put in, looking back and forth between her sister and me. "A good one."

"You're not wrong-incorrect-unfactual," Wordsmith announced out loud, our shoulders rising in a shrug. "We need a plan that will stop-redirect-sideline Fossor without just getting any of us killed, allow us to save and rescue those civilians before the man can do whatever it is he plans to do to them, and safely locate the rift so we can use, utilize, employ it. All without allowing Fossor or any of his goons or thugs or troops to access it themselves. Yes, we do need a very good plan."

A quick check with Seth assured me that Fossor and his people weren't leaving or showing any sign that they knew we were here. He was able to listen in through the scope-portal, overhearing enough to make it clear that Saign and the others were basically just reporting everything that had happened. And yes, part of me did immediately want to hyperventilate the second Fossor was told about a blonde girl with a staff like that. But on the other hand, this was all well over a century before I was born, and I had to believe that Fossor had heard about other blonde girls who could fight with a staff before. As long as he didn't see me as myself, we were probably okay. Or that's what I told myself in lieu of spending a few unproductive minutes breathing into a paper bag.

If the men had seen the twins, two small brown-haired girls, one with a mace and one with a sniper rifle, that might've been a bigger problem than just seeing a blonde girl with a staff. But they hadn't. Yes, they knew someone was shooting at them, yet they hadn't actually seen Sarah because she didn't leave that room until they were gone. She had simply fired at them from the safety of cover. Which, come to think of it, with her scope-portals they were probably under the impression that they had been shot at by multiple people in different buildings. That helped too.

In any case, I wasn't going to let him see Flick. He would see Jacob. And as for the other two--

"We need disguises," Sands announced even as my mouth opened. "You know, if we don't want to fuck over the timeline even more than we're already risking. We can't let him see the real us."

Sarah informed us that she could handle disguising herself and Sands, while I simply used the Jacob identity. It turned out she had been quietly prepping a couple illusion spells for that from the moment she'd realized we were in the past. When she wasn't too busy with everything else.

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The illusion disguises made the two of them look very different. Which was the point, of course, but still. Sands appeared to be a red-headed boy with a heavy splattering of freckles over 'his' face and some truly impressive biceps. Sarah, meanwhile, looked like a very pale, very blonde young girl who would blow over and possibly shatter like fragile glass in a somewhat stiff breeze.

"All righty then," I announced once that had been settled and we all looked different, "the easy part is handled, I guess. Now let's get into the rest of it. How exactly are we gonna pull this off?"

We talked about it for a few minutes, bouncing ideas back and forth while Seth kept a close eye on the other group. In the midst of that, he gave a quick mental tug before informing me that Fossor was actually asking those guys if any of the strangers they had fought had said anything about a portal, a rift, mysterious energy, or anything like that. Which at least answered the question of whether he knew about it or not. Unfortunately, we still didn't know if he was aware of where the rift was. He wasn't polite enough to say anything to that effect out loud, one way or the other.

Partway through our planning, I remembered something and told the girls I had new toys for them, just in case this came down to a straight fight. I hadn't been sure who I should give them to, but if we were really taking the risk of going up against Fossor, even if the whole point was to avoid a real slugging match, we needed every bit of help we could get. Plus, if we used things the future Fossor had never seen any of us use before, it might just help make sure the man didn't put two and two together. We all needed to be as different as possible.

So, I dug into my extra-dimensional pockets and came out with some of those things I'd been saving, the special tools Laein, Percy and I had found in the armory of the Lashra Vaeil, before it became the Roundabout. Sarah got one of the rings that enhanced Necromantic energy, and one of the two pairs of boots we had that could turn her intangible as long as it had charges left (charges that were refilled by her own magical energy if they needed to be). Sands, meanwhile, got that scarf that could extend out to fifty feet and was mentally controlled, and the dagger that was able to cut intangible beings and absorb their energy. I figured that would help the girl with any ghosts that Fossor might throw at her, since Sarah and I had Necromancy to push them away.

I took the two black arm bracers, one of which absorbed and held onto Necromantic energy and the other of which could project an energy blast from that absorbed energy to destroy Necromantic constructs. I also kept the special stopwatch that could slow down everyone besides the user within a fifteen foot bubble to a quarter of their usual speed for thirty seconds. I wasn't under any illusion that something like that would actually work on Fossor all that much, but it might buy us a second or two if it came down to a real emergency. Plus, there was still Saign and the others to deal with, and it would probably have a bit more luck with them. I really hoped so anyway.

The point was, we had some special tools that would, with any luck, help stop Fossor from immediately realizing who we were as soon as he saw us in the future if this actually turned into a fight. Or who we had been-- who we would be-- whatever. It would help keep him from figuring that out. Now we just had to get through this without getting killed. Especially since being dead would be a fast track to getting enslaved by Fossor. Then he'd find out everything. Which… yeah, very bad. The very thought of what that piece of filth would be able to do if he had access to that sort of information was enough to make my stomach twist itself into knots.

But, I pushed it out of my mind and focused on the task at hand. Namely, coming up with and actually carrying out a plan that would make sure that didn't happen. Fortunately, I had help with that, not only thanks to the twins, but from Wordsmith and the rest of Flique as well. We had all hands on deck to hammer this thing out. All the hands that weren't currently in long term hibernation, anyway.

Between all of us, we came up with what we hoped was a workable plan. It probably wasn't the best thing we could possibly do, but we didn't really have time to come up with anything better or more involved. Especially since, if we were going to do this, I had to make a few quick trips. It was a good thing I had that teleportation power, because I spent the next fifteen minutes jumping all across the world, going from one spot to another to set things up. I went from place to place in about six different areas across North America and Europe, setting up the spells I needed for our plan to maybe, hopefully work.

By the time I was done with that, even moving as quickly as I could, Seth had let us know that Fossor was talking about wanting to go check out the town so he could see who these girls who tried to interfere with his people were. Apparently we intrigued him, which made my stomach turn over again. Yeah, I really didn't like that.

Still, we talked things over one last time, to make sure we were all on the same page. And, to be honest, because we were all nervous about what we were about to attempt.

Eventually, Sands straightened up and brushed herself off. "Right, well, if we talk about this any more, I'm pretty sure we'll have to admit that we're just stalling because the very idea of doing this scares the piss out of us. Which, duh. But it's not going to get any better, so unless we just want to walk away…" She made a face and sighed. "Are you sure that multiple selves isn't catching, Flick? Because I've got an awful lot of voices in my head screaming at me right now just for saying that out loud."

Sarah put a hand on her sister's arm and gave it a firm squeeze before speaking as confidently as any of us could right then. "We can do this. We don't have to beat him. We just have to distract him, confuse him, get around him. We overwhelm them before they figure out what's happening. And Flick keeps his attention." She added that part while giving me a hesitant, somewhat weak smile and thumbs up, adding, "You've got this."

Still working to ease my trembling stomach before it could turn traitor completely, I returned the gesture. "Let's hope so, or this is going to turn into a pretty short rescue mission. I'll keep his attention on me as much as I can. You guys just do your parts. And--"

Sands cut in. "We'll be quick. As quick as we can be, anyway. You be ready to go as soon as you get the signal. Cuz knowing that evil fuck, we won't get a second chance, or even much of a first one."

With that, there wasn't anything left to go over. It was like Sands had said, the longer we sat here and talked about it, the more obvious it was that we were just afraid and stalling. Not that anyone who knew anything about Fossor could have blamed us for that.

Making sure I was fully decked out as Jacob, I told myself to let his confidence, hell, his arrogance take over. Yes I was afraid of what Fossor could do. Flick was. And he would absolutely be able to sense that fear, which would screw everything over. But Jacob wasn't afraid of him. Jacob thought he was a joke. Not one to be completely dismissed out of hand, but at least one who didn't scare him. I had to lean into that confidence, completely embrace that role if we were going to pull this off.

I also took a moment to summon the Cryptseeker, since it was going to play a big part in the plan to impress these people. And if that failed, it definitely wouldn't hurt to have that firepower either. As soon as the ship acknowledged the request and confirmed it was on its way, I instructed it to stay far enough away to avoid giving those people any advance warning. I wanted to take them by surprise with every bit of this.

With a last couple words to the twins to make sure we were ready, I straightened up and focused on that area we had been able to see through the scope-portal. It was time to make an entrance none of those people, especially Fossor, would ever forget.

Fossor and the rest of those fucks had no warning at all. I appeared right above their camp, already triggering the spell on my jacket that made it billow out around me, while another triggered spell created an illusion of sorts that made the jacket look about three times longer and wider than it really was. Within that expanded space was thick, oppressive darkness, a seemingly endless expanse of black within the thing, like a void that would drag everyone else within. That part was courtesy of Sands. She'd produced this spell that could make simple darkness look much larger and scarier than it was. I really needed to get her to teach me how to do it, because damn was it effective.

Meanwhile, a loud crack of thunder echoed out around me, loud enough to fill this little base of theirs on its own. But it didn't stop there, because the moment I did that, several matching spells I had set up in the areas surrounding this place went off, so it sounded like the thunder was cascading through the entire landscape for miles in every direction.

I had appeared above the camp, slightly higher than the nearby wooden watchtower with that massive coat billowing behind me. My feet were planted at the top of a nearly twenty foot tall pile of bones. The bulk of the structure was made up of random pieces, but there were actual fully-formed skeletons along both sides. They were all in cowering, fearful positions. Behind me, at the very top, was a black and red throne.

Without missing a beat, I stepped forward and began to walk down. As I descended, two things happened. First, the random pile of bones I was walking on formed themselves into actual steps for me to use. And second, red and black shapes, like shadows with flames flickering inside, seemed to pass out of my coat and into those cowering skeletons as I walked by them. The moment those burning shadows touched each skeleton, it rose and turned, adopting a much stronger, much more confident and powerful pose. They drew weapons, standing tall as I descended into that camp.

At the bottom, as I stepped out onto dirt, the bone tower with its looming skeletons and black throne disintegrated. But it didn't just disappear. The structure seemed to turn into dust and fog, collapsing in on itself and swirling around me rapidly, moving faster and faster and getting smaller, shaping itself into a vaguely pole-like form. At the last second, I summoned my own actual staff (I'd made it dark purple rather than red to make it look different, plus it had the gold bracer on the end that Fossor wouldn't recognize in the future) and made that swirling fog and dust form vanish. That made it look like the bone tower, throne, and armed skeletons had all literally transformed into the staff I was holding.

I wasn't doing all these fancy visual and audio tricks (most of which came from the twins) just for the hell of it. Those were about getting everyone's attention on me. And it was definitely working. Even as my jacket lowered itself back to its real size and the thunder gradually died out, I could see dozens of weapons pointed my way. But I didn't care about any of them. My eyes were centered on the real threat. Fossor stood there by one of the cabins. I saw the way he absorbed my arrival, showing no reaction. Wait, almost no reaction. There was a slight twisting of his face. His lip curled, eye twitching. It was easy to miss if you weren't watching closely, but it was there. He really did not like the person he was looking at.

He knew Jacob. And he loathed the guy.

As soon as I saw that, I knew exactly what to say. With my arms spread wide and a broad smile on my face, I cheerfully called, "Hey there, Fossy! Did ya miss me?"

Before he could say anything to that, or even stop that continued eye twitch, another voice cut in. "Jacob!" It was that Saign guy, a dark orange figure with skin that was covered in scales, wearing a pristine white suit. He was stepping out of that cabin right behind Fossor so he could spread his arms wide in greeting, his smile bright and welcoming. "I didn't think you'd accept my invitation."

Uh, what? I was still trying to catch up, the words coming before I could stop them. "You invited me?" Fortunately, I managed to make it sound more aloof than baffled, like it was something I hadn't even bothered to remember.

The man offered a broad smile, showing his teeth. "Well of course I did, this is a remarkable opportunity.

"What kind of person would I be if I didn't offer to share it with the man whose blood gave me all of my power?"