Regret: Volume Two of Ebb & Flow [Psychological Superpowered Thriller]

For the first time since becoming Six, I have achieved a tentative peace within myself. There is a way forward that doesn't just entail me giving in to the bestial nature or directives implanted in me. Elaine's suggestion allows the human and the beast to coexist. A way to marry the directives and instincts of the monster with the desires and wants of the man. The beast needs to feed, to fight, to challenge stronger beings, and I want to help people, or at the very least be a force for good. So a balance is necessary. I'm hoping that by not fighting my urges so completely that they won't become overwhelming.

Even now, the thing that makes Elaine such pleasant company, that being her inability to die or even be harmed, just makes the urge to battle her stronger. But this is a form of exposure therapy for me, so instead of isolating like I want to, I force myself to engage at her recommendation. If I am ever going to be more than a monster, then I need to socialize. The instincts won't ever subside. He made damn sure of that. The hunger will never go away, I'll never be satiated, but I can try not to be ruled by it so completely.

"SIX," Elaine shouted at me, jolting me from my rumination.

The loud noise activates my bloodlust—the immediate desire to bite her in half bubbles to the surface. My mouth salivates, mandibles clacking and fangs gnashing. My blood heats up when I'm around her. She is Worthy after all, even if she disagrees. Eating nothing but sea creatures that don't pose a threat to me has me itching for a fight. Think. Relax. Resist. You're being rude to her.

"Apologies, Elaine. I was trapped in the typhoon of my thoughts. What were you saying?"

She rolls her eyes at me, then smiles.

"You're pretty introspective for a beast of the apocalypse, you know that?" She joked.

"I don't know any others to compare myself to."

She laughs so hard she doubles over, clutching her stomach.

"That was really funny. Your delivery could use some work, but I'm also a reclusive hermit, so what do I know?"

I wasn't trying to make a joke. But humor might be something that takes the longest to surface from my past. Was I funny before he did this to me? She continues walking, leading me through her base. The hallways are slightly too small for me, but I hold my appendages tightly against my body and keep my tails from swaying too much. My back fin scrapes against the ceiling, but there isn't much I can do about that unless I want to use my powers to traverse. If I'm going to prove I can be civilized, I need to be able to exist in human places without destroying them. Turning intangible and swimming through walls is something a predator does, not a guest.

The hallway ends, and we're back to the oversized rooms I prefer. I raise to my full height and shake off the soreness from crawling through cramped spaces. Elaine doesn't even turn to look back at me; she truly has no fear. After weeks of living on the island with her, there have only been a few incidents. She mostly keeps to herself and leaves it to me to approach her for conversation. I've asked her before if she gets lonely, and her answer was enlightening. You'll understand one day, Six, that living forever is a curse as much as it is a blessing. Immortality is inherently lonely. It is hard for me to understand her perspective, but whatever she did to herself has changed her view. She's lived for so much longer than me.

The room we're in isn't one I've seen before. It isn't another laboratory or workshop. It looks more like a living room, but with limited furniture. There isn't any equipment or weaponry; the only things inside are an armchair and a large screen on the wall. What are we doing here? She walks forward and plops down, the bottom of it swinging out into a platform for her legs. Her hand fishes through the crevice until she pulls out a remote.

"Take a load off and get comfortable," she said.

"What are we doing here?"

"This is my relaxation room. I go in here to watch movies and shows. Like you, I don't sleep, but a psychological fatigue can build up, so having a place to cleanse my mind is a must," she answered without really answering my question. "We're here because I've finished compiling the list of monsters for you to hunt."

A wave of pleasure erupts from the center of my brain, travelling through my entire body. The sheer level of excitement I feel at her words causes me to make an involuntary rumbling sound. The prospect of getting to hunt is making the beast practically purr. It's time. All the waiting and patient self-reflection finally pays off. Keeping half of myself locked inside a cage has been an uncomfortable experience. Hunt the strong. Feed on the weak. Perish in battle. Grow stronger with every death.

"Tell me of them. What are their names? Are they Worthy?"

"Alright, alright. Calm down there. Pop a squat, and I'll show you who I've found," she said, turning the screen on.

The screen has seven names on it: Onslaught, Noxus, Ashanti the Ash Warden, The Still One, Ouroboros, Artist, and The Forge. All strong names. All should be Worthy. All the names fade except for Onslaught's, and then video footage starts playing of a metropolitan street somewhere. Cars drive by as people walk the streets; it's a bustling scene. Then the road explodes as a red blur impacts a truck. My eyes are good enough that if not for the footage being low quality, I'd have been able to tell what the blur was. When the smoke clears, a man is standing within the crater, surrounded by destruction. All the wrecked corpses are making me hungrier.

He's only slightly bigger and taller than the other Neuvohuman men I've fought. He's wearing an interesting costume: a red and white hyperweave singlet. His costume covers everything except for his arms and face. The front has a large skull design on it, and its shoulders have reinforced armor on them. He's got a bit of facial hair, but doesn't look all that special. He rotates around shouting something, and I see his eyes. Simple brown eyes that contain a look I recognize all too well. The urge to fight and devour. He's like me. He's soon surrounded by ten Capes, looking down on him from the edge of the crater. Several of them unleash ranged attacks on him, and a multitude of colors and blinding lights render the video useless for about five minutes. But Elaine doesn't say anything to me besides wait.

When we can finally see what's happening again, Onslaught is standing in the exact same place, except the crater has tripled in size. He doesn't look fazed; he looks excited. The Cowl licks his lips and then blurs again, the camera unable to properly capture the speed he's moving at. He punches one of the Capes, and they are sent flying into the air at a speed exceeding the one he's moving at. So he's durable, fast, and strong. Three of them charge him, two grappling his arms to hold him, while the third fires blue lasers from his eyes. The width of the beam keeps growing until it's as thick as my tail. Still, Onslaught laughs. I have to know what he tastes like.

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A woman speeds in just as the eye laser man stops, and she punches the Cowl hard. Hard enough that the ground beneath him explodes. She punches him repeatedly, even as the crater grows large enough that nearby buildings are collapsing into it. The video angle changes, going higher and to a safer distance from the battle. The woman continues, and the drone or whatever is filming can't even get a glimpse of where she and Onslaught are. Then, Onslaught jumps out of the hole the Cape made. He's holding her by her neck, squeezing hard. She throws a right hook at him, which he catches effortlessly. His hand closes on her fist, and she screams in agony. How strong is he to be able to do that to her? But he isn't done, and he twists her arm to the point it's bent at a wonderful angle. The other Capes aren't just standing around, but none of their attacks have proven effective so far. He releases her neck, grabbing the shoulder of the same arm he's twisting, and then he yanks it off. Delicious blood sprays from the shoulder, and he throws the severed arm to the ground.

The Cape, who was hit into the sky, comes crashing down into him like a meteor. He succeeds in making Onslaught drop her, and one of the other Capes gets her out of the hole quickly. The Cowl comes leaping up, holding the man who crashed into him by the back of his neck like a misbehaving pet. He shows off his hostage to all of them, taunting them before snapping the man's neck, dropping the corpse onto the ground. He blitzes two others, backhanding one of them with so much force that it decapitates them. The second Cape tries to escape, running away, but Onslaught is too quick, catching up to her, and puts his foot through her. I'm so excited about the prospect of fighting him. The hunt would be glorious. The footage stops, and I growl at Elaine.

"Why did you stop? Show me the rest."

"There isn't anything else to it. It was destroyed. But I'll tell you how it ended if you'd like me to," she offered.

"Tell me what you know."

"Only three of the Capes survive, but one was permanently maimed. And Onslaught isn't captured. That was his second-ever appearance, and he nearly eradicated two Heroes' Union squads," she answered.

"He ran from them?"

Worthy don't flee from battle. Predators don't flee, prey does.

"Nope. A BNA Mentalist who can identify what powers a Neuvohuman has the longer she sees it, happened to be stationed nearby. She identified Onslaught's abilities and discovered that he grows stronger and more durable the longer he's in combat. That is on top of him being superhuman out of combat. He's dangerous, and that day the world discovered that the only way to deal with Onslaught is to not engage. They had a Traveller teleport him thousands of feet up in the sky, above the deepest part of the ocean. Onslaught can't be reasoned with or dealt with; he can only be redirected. He craves intense and prolonged fights and will do whatever he has to to get them."

"He is worthy. I will hunt him, and I will devour him. If he kills me, I will rise and try again."

"Hold your horses. There are six others to choose from. Some of them have never been captured in footage or images, but that doesn't mean I have no information to give you. Noxus might be impossible for you, but I have a feeling that only makes you more excited. He is a living poison cloud that has engulfed all of Paris, France, making it uninhabitable for anyone but him. The miasma makes it impossible for drones or planes, or even satellite imaging, to get any kind of idea of what it looks like on the ground. Even his powers aren't that well-known. It's unclear whether he's a Manipulator, Alter, Caster, or Tinkerer. The BNA, the Heroes' Union, and the United Nations declared Paris an Exclusion Zone. Meaning they quarantined the city and it's been written off as too costly to attempt to take back," Elaine continued.

Noxus might not be as interesting a battle as Onslaught, but it would arguably do more good for the world. Ridding Paris of him will help reclaim an entire city. And hunting an elusive Worthy through a toxic city sounds exciting. But I need to know who the rest are before I make a decision.

"Who is the Ash Warden?"

"Ashanti is a modern-day warlord. Her trigger event occurred when she was only eight years old; an attack on her village by a foreign Cowl resulted in both of her parents dying, blinding her right eye, and scarring her face permanently. Driven by grief, she responded to the loss of control by launching a cleanse of all foreigners from Ghana. She gave them a month to evacuate, and if there were any left, she would kill them. The local government sent Capes to apprehend the child, and she killed them. The BNA sent soldiers and Special Agents to apprehend the child, and she killed them. Oppertunistic Cowls tried to take advantage and apprehend the child; she killed them as well. She is genuinely one of the most powerful Neuvohumans to ever live," Elaine said.

"The child is Worthy?"

"No, Six, she's not a child anymore; this happened thirty-five years ago. Ashanti is an adult. It would be hard to convince people you're the good kind of monster if you were hunting and killing children. Where was I? Yes, after she made her declaration and killed all those who were sent after her, she did three things. She first made good on her promise, killing all foreigners who had not evacuated. Then she made a monument using the bodies of everyone who had been sent after her and the foreigners. From an architectural and symbolic point of view, it's quite an impressive creation. The final act she did was to declare Ghana unwelcome to outsiders. She didn't try and take power from the government; in fact, she leaves them to govern as long as they do not cross her on this rule. She doesn't stay in one place for too long, travelling the country in disguise, by herself. But every time a foreigner has set foot in Ghana in the last thirty-five years, they have been killed within the week," Elaine said, her face passive.

"She is definitely Worthy with a story like hers. Why do you seem uninterested in her?"

"Like I've told you before, being immortal does make it hard to care too much about things that will fade with time. Her story, while tragic, is one that will repeat. There will always be murders, there will always be orphans, and there will always be tyrants. There are so few of us, and so many of them. Concerning myself with their struggles is just a recipe for heartbreak. In the blink of an eye, their lives will be over, and the lives of everyone who knew them will be over," she droned on.

"Then why help me?"

"Because the current thing I'm working on has stalled for a bit, so I had some time. Moving on, you're going to love the next one: The Still One," she said, face finally showing emotion.

"Why is that?"

"Because no one knows what they look like, we only know where they've been. Look at this," she said, pressing the remote.

She shows me a picture of a park with a slight distortion effect on it. My eyes soak in all the details immediately. There's a metal sign that says Hayfield Park on the right side of the image. There's a playground with kids playing on it. Going down slides, climbing the monkey bars, running, and laughing. This is what I used to have. Before he took it from me. Dogs off leashes chasing each other. In the background, there's a father playing catch with his son. The photo perfectly encapsulates a moment in time. It's beautiful. Elaine presses another button on the remote, and the picture moves. No, not the picture. She isn't showing me a photo taken of a park; she's showing me a video someone took. The camera pans, showing all the people who seem frozen in time. What happened there?

"You get it. Whoever The Still One is, they are capable of creating these areas that are perfectly still. Every five years, one of these pops up somewhere in the world. Nothing can undo the effect, and no one knows who they are. Even the name was coined by a reporter who discovered the first bubble. Theoretically, I could achieve the same effect, but not the way they have. And I've tried to reverse what they've done, but nothing I've done has worked. Whatever their power is, it seemingly cannot be superseded or undone. Fifty years of activity, and we're no closer to discovering their identity," she exclaimed.