Book 2: Chapters 28-30 (Final 3)

Chapter 28: In the Council Chamber and Across the Protocols

8In a dark room at the Center of the Multiverse, a range of former Creators and legacied nobles excitedly moved around an ostentatious room. Supreme assistants moved with them, each council member having two helping them with anything they might need. One Councilmember stood near a golden chair, showing off a plain brown leather bag.

"It's wondrous! I can't believe how many different items this beauty can hold."

"How much did it cost you, Councilmember?" A Supreme Assistant in the shape of a small green ring asked from beside him.

"Only enough to create a mid-sized planet. Truly, a frugal purchase." He said with a smile. "When we next hold the inter-council retreat, I will be the center of all attention. The Bravo protocol is going to eat themselves alive."

"Well done." A Supreme Assistant added, standing on his other side.

"Three!" a sizeable nebulous being yelled out. Where the sound projected from, nobody but the speaker knew, "You need to stay on top of your assigned strands! We're losing resources every minute you're not commanding your assistants."

"Shove it up your ass, Seven! You're just jealous! And stop calling me Three!"

"You just called me Seven!"

"Language," A Sentinel on a platform near the wall said as he looked over the room. The rebuked man's face scrunched up momentarily before it settled down. He placed the bag in his pocket and walked over to his station.

"That damned genius really put a lot of work on our heads!" Councilman four yelled out from his station, "I'm having a hell of a time making sure that the Life strands are collected properly. They're constantly trying to break away from their vessels and have already infected hundreds of storage vats."

"Just do your best." The longest-lasting councilmember said. "Where's Five anyways?"

The nebulous council member snorted, "Who knows One? He's probably still trying to get that Supreme Assistant to countermand his new primary directive. How we lost control of an Assistant, let alone the Assistant connected to that genius, is beyond me. You'd never betray me, right LAD20?" He asked the gray jelly Assistant near him.

"Never, Councilmember Seven."

"We wouldn't dream of it." His other assistant echoed.

"See! It must have something to do with that Creator, Dante. No, Walker. Something in his genetic material, perhaps. Either way, we may have to quarantine the whole ren-."

He was interrupted by a message hitting every overlay at the same time.

The System Administrator has fallen!

...

A new System Administrator has been found.

Please stand by for any future changes to the Protocol System as they begin their work.

If a person were to enter the room at that moment, they wouldn't be able to hear a sound—not a breath—not even a silent shudder coursing through their bodies. Just the utter stillness of this exact moment being recorded mentally by everyone involved.

A second later, one of the Sentinels on the wall bowed, "It has been a privilege." Before disappearing.

"What?" Councilmember Three said in confusion, "They've never left a post empty before."

"It has been a privilege." Another said, bowing before also disappearing.

One by one, each sentinel bowed, said the same line, and then disappeared. Nobody in the room knew where they went, which the pandemonium that followed all too clearly showed.

"What's happening!"

"Is this some kind of attack? Have the Awakened come for us?"

"The Origin! We must escape to the Origin!"

"They'll never take us back, you moron! Contact our embassies! The other Council chambers!"

While all the Council members panicked, one stayed relatively calm as he turned his eyes to the last remaining Sentinel.

"It has been a privilege."

"Wai-" Councilmember One said as he reached a claw out, but it was already too late. The last Sentinel disappeared from the Council chambers of the Alpha Protocol, and all that was left were those in the room and their assistants. Councilmember One looked around at everyone, seeing nothing but fear and disorder trapped behind their eyes.

Well, the eyes he could see.

"We will not panic. We will continue on, with our work for the Evolver Faction. We're going to move forward like we always have, " he said, attempting to lock each firmly behind him.

Councilmember Three shook as he looked at his elder, "But, the Sentinels. They-Wait, are.." He looked at his two assistants, who looked at each other and shook their heads.

"We are with you, Councilmember Three."

"Indeed." The other said.

"Oh, thank goodness."

As his shoulders slumped, his worst fears almost realized, Five stepped into the room. He looked left and right, noticing the Sentinel's absences right away.

"I see."

Councilmember Three sneered at him, "You see what exactly, you damned fool! The System Administrator, who has hidden from us for thousands of years, is dead. We don't know who the next one is, what they're planning, OR WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO US!" He yelled out, sharp breaths quickly following, "We don't even know what's still working and what isn't! We're doomed! We relied so much on this damned system, and now, it may be our downfall!"

"Well, then, let's take a page from Walker’s book." Seven smiled, "Let's be better."

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Each council across the Evolver multiverse had similar reactions as the messages came in. There was a great delay in time, split amongst them, as some were accelerating within their Temporal zones, and others weren't. In the Psi and Omega councils, who always remained within an accelerated zone, the Sentinels stayed put for now, but wouldn't answer any questions no matter how they asked.

The councils not within a zone were blissfully unaware, still moving about with their plots and intrigues. And where there hadn't been one since first splitting away from the Origin, a strain of worry threaded its way through the previously confident group of former Creators and Nobles. Messages flew across the renditions, harsh words were exchanged, and small political battles were waged on a seemingly endless scale.

For the first time in a long time, the Evolvers were split on what should happen next.

The Slicer, just having completed his training within the Psi Protocol, watched as his mentor approached him with a deep sigh.

The glorious destroyer tilted his head at the slow approach, "What?"

Chapter 29: In Another Rendition: The Slicer

"Next!" a ringing voice called out.

The Slicer weaved his way across multiple, unremarkable platforms, a line of variously sized and descriptive creatures in front of him. Skyscrapers littered the landscape, each having no purpose for the Psi protocol except one thing, holding the bloated masses who had become comfortable in their small and unimportant lives. Attacking them was useless, something he knew well from experience.

One of his abilities informed him that something humorous was about to happen. A thick, heavy-muscled arthropod was charging one of the skyscrapers, seemingly on a whim, as the Slicer hadn't seen it before. The creature's feet picked up speed, a blur of motion only those with unique abilities could see, as it targeted a singular red tower shooting high into the sky.

Moron.

The Slicer committed to the view as the first time a Destroyer attempted it; it was always a comical moment. He noticed several other Destroyers doing the same, while many of the Terrors were immune to the action occurring so near them, having seen it too many times.

The blue-chitinous creature wound back a claw as it approached the edge of the skyscraper, then threw it forward with violent intent, a blaze of fire igniting around its arm as the atmosphere was partially ignited by friction. As every Terror and most Destroyers knew would happen, its arm hit the bubble, and unlike the bubbles the Slicer had worked against in the 4AA rendition, this one held the creature completely still rather than rebounding it with force.

The newbie Destroyer screeched, the sound not unlike air passing quickly through a tunnel, before it realized it was truly stuck. It stood there, waiting for something else to happen.

Only, nothing did.

Many of those in line looked around, not understanding the lack of policing, and the Slicer even spied some of the Terrors doing the same now. He found apprehension and confusion on some of their faces. Something was wrong. Something was different.

The Sentinels were gone.

The Slicer had learned this from his mentor only moments before receiving the call that he would be leaving soon. The Psi Protocol had decided that it was time the Slicer was field-tested for promotion to a higher tier. His current rank, at the low low value of 1,005, wasn't accurate to the majesty of his strength and cunning. Thus far, all of his assignments have been minor. Destroy a city on an asteroid in this location. Wipe out a moon and make it uninhabitable. Burn the fields. To the Universal Terror, it was too simple and simply dull.

Of course, he'd lost quite a few rank levels with the Youmal incident. He didn't like to think about the failure unless he had to.

Looking at the blue-chitinous creature still stuck in the wall, he realized what was going to happen. 

Not a damn thing. 

It would be stuck there until it wised up and tore off its own claw, or it would die of something else, something expectedly unexpected. Likely a Terror or another Destroyer deciding it was a delicious-looking snack. In their defense, it was quite a delicious-looking snack, with supple plating and a good amount of meat beneath it. The Slicer shook his head. There was only one reason this was happening.

Something had changed.

The Slicer had asked his mentor, who had lived far longer than himself, why the Sentinels had left. The toothy creature had informed his junior that the Sentinel's disappearance was an event that had never occurred before in the long history of the Protocols. Since the time the multiverse was first created, Sentinels have stood watch over the different planets within the Center. 

Each was a powerhouse that few could match up against, and when they worked together, even Terrors wouldn't last long against them. It would take something far greater to defeat their coordination and experienced strength. Yet, now they could no longer be found. It was decidedly new.

They weren't all gone. That is to say, the Psi council was still protected, but for the standard areas that always held the silent guardians before, the policemen were away.

The ringing voice called out from up ahead, "Wait your turn, wait your turn. If you don't, you won't have a chance at destruction and mayhem," A man looking vaguely like the Slicer's Creator said near the front, "I said hold your turn!" He yelled out as a whip of red and black particles appeared in his hand. He cracked it down against an insectoid creature, leaving a deep laceration on its previously pristine exoskeleton. The pitiful Destroyer fell to the ground, several of its dozen or so mandibles twitching.

"See what you made me do!" The man said, stretching in his power suit, a sense of inherent superiority unconsciously built into his every movement, "You want to kill, I get it. It's who you are. But there has to be order here! Order I say," He finished as he raised the whip in the air again, preparing to strike the Destroyer just before it could regain its feet.

"Hold!" A man called out, quickly walking forward with long strides. Unlike the man holding the whip, this one had lines of black streaks on his armor from shoulder to shoulder. He pulled the whip-carrying man aside and whispered something. The Slicer's ability-enhanced hearing picked up the tail end of the conversation, "I understand, I'll be careful." The man gave another conciliatory gesture before heading back to the front of the line at his superior's nod.

Just as quickly as it had appeared, the whip disappeared. He yelled out as if nothing had happened, "Step through the portal now!" to the insectoid creature. It stood on shaky legs and entered, the scar on its body already beginning to heal. As it disappeared, he yelled out, “Next!"

A twenty-foot-tall creature of ooze moved forward at a sloth-like rate of speed, stopping just in front of the man. He looked at his screens before saying, "You're off to rendition 2EJ. Total destruction of the planet Septirius. No survivors are required. Please enter the portal," he said with a wave. A blue portal appeared beside him on an overly large platform. The ooze creature slithered in, and without any pomp, the Terror and portal disappeared.

"Next!"

Two more destroyers followed, the Slicer having seen them multiple times in the past. His mentor had told him about them, using their lives as a reminder of the consequences of failure, like Youmal.

Neither had passed the qualifications needed for the Omega Protocol and were forever reduced to the small auspices of the lower-ranked Psi. The Portal Master told them both that they would be sent to destroy cities, rather than planets or even a moonlet. A delicious grass-covered moonlet. He shook the thought away as he was at the front of the line.

"Next!"

The Slicer undulated forward.

"Ah, you're up for your promotion, I see." The man said, looking in the air at his screens. " Are you Trying to break past the 1k mark, little one?" he asked the glorious destroyer himself.

"Yes," the Slicer hissed at him, not enjoying the name-calling.

"At least you're doing better. The first time you came through here, you tried to attack everyone and anything you could see. It's nice to see you gain some self-control."

"Self-control is a limitation placed upon you by those who believe themselves your better." The Slicer rasped at him, "I want freedom."

"I see." He said with no change in expression. The Slicer had been trained in recognizing shifts in humanoid facial expressions by his mentor, so he knew when the Portal Master shifted from neutrality to against him by a minute change in his posture. "Perhaps you're not ready for-"

"I'm ready!" The Slicer hissed, his barbed tail having a fit behind him before he could gain control of it.

"Well," He said, considering the heavily plated six-foot-long worm in front of him, "the world you're going to can't get much worse." He nodded his head, "You're heading to Capilama 3, a mining world. You're to leave the mines alone and only kill the workers. It's a rare deal the Capilama Creator made with the Charlie council in exchange for future-."

That was more information than the Slicer needed, "I don't care!"

He sighed, "I figured as much." Waving a hand to the platform next to him, a portal appeared. "Please step through when you're ready. It'll deposit you DIRECTLY in front of the mine. We've also expended the extra temporal resources to allow you to stay in accelerated time throughout the mine. You shouldn't notice a difference when you finish," he said, drawing out the word "translocating."

The Slicer undulated forward without a care in the world, only half listening. He stopped a foot away from where he knew the portal would grab him and looked back. The blue-chitinous Terror was now a blubbering mess. Sad wheezing sounds came from its chest as it slumped against the bubble inch by inch. The moron had tried to use its other hand to free the first one, with the obvious result of having both arms now being stuck.

Looking around, he found no Sentinels coming to the rescue, and a small fight was breaking out near the rear of the line without the standard immediate action. Things were changing. He looked at the Portal Master, then back out to the wider world housing the Psi Protocol.

Almost, he slithered off of the portal's platform to cause the death and destruction so near and dear to his heart. Almost.

But, his mentor had been training him to control instincts like this. He needed more evolutions to continue his way forward, to truly grow as a Terror and evolve into something more. Something purer. An Omen.

The Slicer entered the portal to Capilama 3, and the difficult trial ahead of him.

Each time he entered, he was standing in one place one moment, then another the next, simple.

Translocation was supposed to be fast. His vision of the Psi Protocol's home planet disappeared fast enough, but his body was fading into Capilama 3 one slow moment at a time. It was unusual, but he didn't panic. It gave him a rare moment to reflect on the turns his life had taken since first accepting his mentor's offer.

When Twenty convinced him to join the Psi Protocol, the translocation had been nearly instantaneous. One moment, they were floating in space, and the next, he was in a large facility. Not only in a large facility, of course, but in a metal room with barred windows. After an initial expenditure of built-up rage, Twenty, or Ra'jin as he gave his name, stood outside his cage, hands in pockets.

"They do this with every Destroyer and Terror," he said with no contrition in his voice. “Can you blame them?" He nodded to the cages around them. Their inhabitants all seemed mad with rage, like the Slicer had been only moments before. Even though they always had the same results when attacking the protocol bubbles, they never stopped to consider what this action showed to their captors: a disturbing lack of control.

He only had to wait two days before they released him to his mentor, who informed him of some general rules that all Destroyers and the ranks above them were forced to live by.

1. Attacking the cities and citizens of the Psi Protocol will not be tolerated.

2. Violations, or not following the directions you are given, will result in a demotion of rank.

3. Following the directions you are given to an upstanding degree will result in a promotion of rank.

4. Any entity within the Psi Protocol that falls under the rank of five thousand will immediately be placed back within the rendition and location of their original recruitment.

5. Any entity that moves up in rank will receive unique benefits befitting their station.

The benefits, of course, were not unique. Sure, they told all of the Destroyers that, but it just wasn't true.

When he first arrived, the unique benefit given to anyone between the ranks of four and six thousand was the reward of a mentor. Every new Terror and Destroyer was ranked between the five and six-thousand mark, with a two-month opportunity to move past the cutoff for displacement. 

Some did, many didn't.

The Slicer was lucky enough to have a very high-ranking mentor, who had survived experiences similar to his own. Thus, for the first time in the Slicer's life, he had what a normal person would call a friend. The impulse to attack and destroy was there, it was always there, but that clawing and grasping creature in the back of his mind seemed to be quieter anytime Ra'Jin was around. 

Of course, the memory of the sheer size and power of the creature had nothing to do with it.

After his release, his mentor immediately started his training, explaining that his personal rank could increase if his pupil did well in the Psi Protocol. For every thousand ranks the Slicer moved, his mentor would move one, and if he reached the top one hundred, he would gain a bonus rank at each point after that. Thus, his success was his mentor's success, and Ra'Jin did not enjoy failure. 

The first bit of training had to do with self-control and the delay of gratification. Ra'jin had placed a dummy in a small arena. The dummy looked just like the Slicer's former Creator. His stupid face, stupid useless hair, and horribly ugly clothing. He'd torn him to pieces. And again. And again. Over fifty dummies had come and gone in that small arena. On the fifty-first, he'd had enough control to stop himself for a moment. Although the action seemed infinitesimal to him, his Mentor had clapped and applauded.

"Took me over a month to learn that kind of control. You're doing fine." He reassured him. On the 121st he was able to stand there and yell obscenities about those who procreated this massive waste. On the two-hundredth, he was able to merely glare.

The second bit had to do with expanding his vocabulary, as Ra'Jin said the Universal Translator left much to be desired.

The Slicer slowly learned to read within a specially designed Temporal chamber. It's effect was to double the acceleration of time over the standard that everyone else used, thereby allowing him to absorb the knowledge and wisdom of those who had come before without further delaying his impending deployments. It was not a pleasant time for the Slicer, as naturally he was not a calm and silent person. The torn-up pages of many books littered the chamber when the Slicer had finally exited. Ra'jin had taken one look inside before snorting and they continued on.

The Slicer was trained in evolutionary pathways, learning how to push the system to grant the specific evolutions he would need once he unlocked a higher limit. He also learned about how to deal with humanoid and non-humanoid sapients, non-sapients, and was given a smattering of foundational science and technology breakdowns.

His first deployment was easy. Destroy a village. As if that would have been any trouble for the Slicer before the Psi Protocol had picked him up. 

His initial success was enough to finally reach the three-thousands in rank and obtain the next reward. His "unique" gift had been a training yard of his own, which was quite the blessing as the common-training areas were all incredibly loud and chaotic. Evolutionary abilities and the rare use of magic littered the training yard, forcing him to work in upgrading the dodging skill he had once picked up when traveling through a moving asteroid field.

He also slept there, not having an evolution that disallowed its need. This consistently vexed him because he lost a lot of time, where instead of sleeping, he could be training or volunteering for early deployments so he could move up in rank.

His second and third deployments were easygoing, but moving up the ranks became more difficult the higher he was. By the sixth mission, he was destroying planets again, his rank increases coming in sporadic numerical gains. Sometimes he'd even move down in rank as another Terror or Destroyer passed him on their own missions.

After the 10th mission, it came to a point where he was only getting a fifty-rank increase for each. They were also growing more difficult, the system consistently adding new parameters that tested his knowledge and understanding of what was required of him. Multiple times it asked him to set up a planet to fail at speed, rather than have him destroy it outright, as was his prerogative. Ra'jin explained when he asked about it.

"It's about the Temporal Resources," He said while chewing some kind of dry meat with his large white teeth, "They have to spend quite a few each time you're deployed. If they didn't, the Psi Protocol would move on in accelerated time, and you'd still be on your first deployment." He swallowed the meat and took another out of a sealed bag. The Slicer noticed he didn't offer him any, "They're asking each Terror, who shows promise, to set up the planet for failure quickly so that they can cut off the time acceleration the moment you leave. It's simply economical."

"Economical?" The Slicer asked.

"Efficient and careful when using resources."

"Ah."

"So, it makes a certain sense."

The Slicer nodded while still not entirely understanding.

The two-thousand mark in ranks finally gave something actually "Unique." An evolution that once given, couldn't be taken away, and handily bypassed the system's cap on his current amount of allowed evolutions.

The ability to shapeshift.

It was enormously painful, as the ability conferred the ability to shapeshift without the full knowledge of how it worked. With most abilities, there's an inherent understanding of them. To activate his dodging ability, he instinctively knew what it was and pushed on something in his mind. The feeling was reminiscent of the first time he ever pulled a lever. Abilities were simple. A pull and a catch, then he was dodging. It worked the same way with all of them. Meteoric Fall, Acid Splash, each a lever in his mind waiting for him to tug on it. However, shapeshifting was different because it was assigned rather than earned.

The Slicer had been forced back into the Temporal Chamber for some time, retching and spitting blood and fluids as he experimented on his own body. Ra'Jin said the goal was to appear humanoid, that way he could blend in with populaces for the more complicated deployments. But it was so very painful. He didn't step out of the chamber until a month had passed within. The creature that stepped out didn't step at all, but slithered as was usual.

"What are you doing? Didn't you work on your shapeshifting?" Ra'Jin asked, waiting for him outside.

The Slicer spat, "I am what I am. I can change into any shape I need to for the mission, but only for the mission."

And that was that.

His mind pulled out of his recollections, as his body had almost fully translocated to Capillama 3. One last thought dug into his brain.

Youmal

When the Slicer was honest with himself, he didn't find any blame on his side. His first promotion mission required that he only kill any blue-skinned creatures found on the planet, not any and all. Right before they'd sent him, he had tried to warn the Portal Master, but a small push from a distracted Destroyer behind him, and it was already too late.

The first issue was, that they didn't place him in the right spot upon arriving. He'd translocated in quickly, finding himself surrounded by creatures from every direction. Bumping and jostling into him every which way while not paying any attention to his great majesty. It was annoying, and if he was honest with himself, slightly frightening.

The second issue was, the Slicer assumed that they had skin, only, he was colorblind. That's what he was trying to warn the Portal Master about. The mission was doomed for failure the moment he'd been sent.

Instinctively understanding this, he did what came naturally to him. He leaped into the sky and activated meteoric fall, blowing the planet to pieces after only three attempts at the same location.

The subsequent translocation and dressing down didn't sit right with him. It was their fault, not his. They just didn't know him. This mission should be much simpler.

The translocation was almost done, ending on the tips of his barbed mouth, when it stalled and stopped. That had never happened before. He began to grow worried. Always before had it been fast, and never before had it ever stopped. Without warning, the translocation turned off entirely, and the ends of his mouth disappeared.

"What!" He hissed, looking around as the pain in his mouth escalated. The planet was abandoned. Everywhere he looked, nothing was there at all. It was a barren and desolate world with nothing on the surface.

To his right, a blue light began to go off. Inch by inch, a creature was translocating in beside him. It had large wings and a small head, with a body one would associate with a lion. Only, it was translocating as slowly as he had been. He waited several moments for it to finish, embracing his training to remain cool and collected as Ra'jin had taught him. When the creature finally finished coming in, it looked around and found his eyes immediately.

"What's happen-," The Slicer tried to ask, but the creature attacked him immediately. He snipped the bastard's head off quickly, then stared at the body on the ground, blood pooling around it.

A blue light began to go off in the near distance.

"What the fuck!"

Chapter 30: On Earth: Alexander and the End Times

The Boy and his father continued to travel across the barren Earth. They'd barely been getting along, constantly pursued by things they couldn't name. Monsters, covered in and made of shadow. Strange things in the night's air, attacking anything that came close. There were also others, other creatures. People. Humans.

Alexander, or Lex as he preferred to be called, was adrift in a sea of horror. He’d learned to navigate the current over the last three months of his life, but not without being rocked by waves too great to overcome.

It had all started with the freeze in time. One moment, he had been working on his homework at a whorled brown desk, sitting in a chair two years past uncomfortable. As he was mentally cursing his maths teacher, something strange seemed to hit the atmosphere. The next thing he knew, he had been trapped in place, slowly unfreezing. First, his mind, then a finger, then a thumb. One by one parts of him had unglued themselves from whatever reality they had been entrapped in, and as his ears followed with the rest of his body, the sounds started to strike an already ebullient fear in his mind. Raising it. Taking his nerves to a new level of terror.

The world wasn't ending, it already had. And in less time than it would take to watch a film.

They had hidden out in a small hotel nearby, thinking maybe it had the elusive food and water necessary for their weak bodies to survive. Then that woman, the angry one who reveled in spilling blood, came and ended most of his family in a moment. Why she had let him go, he didn't know. He just knew that the moment she laid her eyes on him, something had changed within. Something primal and uncontainable. It had struck his body with a pain that could never be eclipsed by any other for the rest of his life. He was sure of that.

Not emotional, but physical, vomit-inducing pain. His grandmother had died shortly after, and his father had wheeled him out on an old, flimsy piece of wood, each bump cascading new torturous feelings. Even with his eyes closed, the sun had still reached its angry hand through, burning him. His nerves twitched with the wind, and his sense of smell was better not to speak of after being holed up for so long without water.

It was his father who kept him going, who explained what had happened over the last two weeks while he had slipped in and out of consciousness. He often awoke only long enough for him to be fed a simple broth by a man who was so terrified of their circumstances that he couldn't say more than drink quietly.

They had found shelter multiple times. A family here, who wasn't so overcome by the apocalypse to ignore a needed hand. Scavengers there, who they could steal from without their knowledge. It wasn't until a month after escaping the woman who destroyed his life, that he was able to walk on his own, and that's when he started to notice the changes that had been brought on to his body.

After he was finally able to stand on his own two feet, he found the first steps hard to take, literally. A strange skipping would occur with each push off the ground, as if everything felt...lighter. Each landing jarred his already sensitive body, but slowly and surely, he learned how to move again. A little less pressure when lifting his foot, and a bit of a slide on his back leg kept him rooted to the ground. His father said it looked like he was dancing everywhere he went, but Lex didn't mind. Dancing through the apocalypse sounded quite nice.

Even though walking felt a little like floating, he needed to learn how to run, but there were problems. When he had recovered enough for the attempt, he found himself unable to. He hadn’t adjusted to the strange new occurrences with his joints and muscles. They were too tight, begging to be released the moment he applied a little pressure. He'd asked his father, but the man didn't know what to think. They looked him over from top to bottom but found nothing visually different. His acne had cleared up, which was a blessing in itself, but that was it.

Lex stood near a terrible scene, staring at it with dull eyes. Thinking it was time to test just how strong his changed body was, he walked over to a nearby hill and found a series of boulders alongside the road. These were not naturally formed but rather dug up from the earth by a plane crash, its flames long spent. Bodies littered the area of different ages, and he tried not to look at the half-rotted skeletons still wearing the clothes of the living.

The drudged-up boulders were scattered, but easy enough for him to find. He located one early on in his search, no larger than a bowling ball. Before the end of the world, Lex would've had a little bit of trouble lifting the weighty object, but now, he wasn't so sure.

His father walked up behind him, “What are you doing?’

“I need to know,” Lex said simply.

“Know what?”

“How strong I am now. What’s different about me. There has to be more to this. A reason.”

The man put a hand on his shoulder before he could start his attempt, “You’re still you, Alexander. You’re still your mother’s son.”

He nodded without looking back, “Of course I am. But, there’s something else going on here. I need to know my limits.”

They stood quietly like this for a long moment. A father trying to comfort a distraught son, before the hand removed itself and he stepped back, “As you wish.”

Lex bent over without wasting time and easily lifted the boulder. To test himself, he palmed it as best as he could and held on with only one hand. He turned to face his father, “This isn’t normal.” He said as he lightly tossed the boulder up before catching it again.

His father’s eyes followed the light throw, “What’s normal anymore?”

Lex let the boulder fall with a loud thud, before finding another. This one slightly larger than a tire. Bending forward, he still had no issues at all with the weight. It should weigh several hundred kilograms, yet to him, it felt like no more than a dozen. Too unwieldy to palm, he instead put it over his head and thrust up with one arm, placing his hand underneath it and in the center. It wobbled a little but held.

“A little strain with this.”

His father nodded, “So, one of your arms is a little stronger than the strongest human ever to live," He said in an unimpressed voice.

Lex smiled at him, remembering them watching strongman competitions in the past and his father always cheering them on loudly, knowing they couldn't hear him. His father's sense of humor had changed since the events that led to their exit from London. He used to laugh openly, but now everything had a dry tinge to it, as if humor was another casualty of this period in time.

Putting both hands underneath it, he shot it toward the sky as hard as he could, bending then flexing his knees quickly with a slight hop. It rocketed toward through the air, arcing in the direction they’d come from. He’d never have done this at night when the shadow monsters could get them. But aside from some scavenging bands of humans, it was relatively safe during the day.

Lex’s sharpened eyes watched the boulder fly, its descent pushing it into a series of trees, many of them parting with snaps and cracks that could be distinctly heard miles away as the boulder finally landed with a boom.

He smiled again at his father, who gave a tired one in return.

That was two months ago, just before his father had died, doing his very best to keep his son going. To keep him strong. Alive. The shadow monsters had surrounded them, slowly peeling away any routes they had for escape. His father had shoved him into a dark tunnel, then continued his run. His last words were a quickly shouted I love you, then all that could be heard were receding steps and heavy breathing. Lex had been too shocked to follow after him, remembering his father's warnings about being a hero. He didn't want to waste his father’s sacrifice. So he sat in a small tunnel in the dark and waited until daylight.

Blessedly, he didn't hear his screams.

He now stood alone, staring down at the largest active settlement he’d seen since the end of times had come. Laughter rang up from below, the chatter of those unburdened by the failure of the world to stay together. Lex watched them, focusing his eyes over a mile away on a couple sitting at two stools, the woman’s hand on the man’s knee while he told some kind of story.

It's not fair, Lex thought to himself. Why do they get to be happy? Why do they have this, this place? I've been running for months!

As he began to stand up, he heard the easily identifiable click of metal latching onto metal. The cock of a hammer.

"Don't move," a tense voice said behind him.

"Or what?" Lex couldn't help but ask.

"Or you'll find a round between your shoulder blades."

Thinking back to his father's sacrifice, he held still without speaking.

"What's your name?" the voice asked. It held the higher pitch he was used to hearing in females, and a slight tremor landed on the final word.

Lex couldn't help but laugh, "Names? As if names matter anymore! Everything's dead and gone!"

"And yet, I'll still have it."

"Lex...Alexander Lewis."

"Well, Alexander...um...we have a problem."

"What problem is that?"

There was a pause before she began speaking again, "We don't know you, and um, that's the uh, problem."

"You know my name," Lex fished, trying to get the nervous girl aiming a gun at the back of his head to calm down a little."

"Yes, but..."

A branch snapped behind them loudly. Lex heard the trigger pull before a loud noise snapped out, and he felt something punch into his back.

Not the head

He stumbled forward onto all fours while the girl had a panic attack behind him.

"Oh my god, oh god, oh god. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to kill you! Oh my god!"

"Calm down, you didn't kill me." He said, standing up. He turned around to face his accidental attacker.

A girl no more than five feet tall stood there, red hair spilling down and around her shoulders in a river of scarlet. When she met his eyes, she put a hand across her mouth, "How?"

Lex shrugged, "I don't know. Something weird happened to me in London, and a lot of pain followed. I discovered my body is much tougher than it should be."

"Are you okay? Really?" She asked, not quite believing that he was perfectly healthy.

"I'll have some bruising, but nothing worse than that. What did you shoot me with anyway?"

She held up a small pistol, likely from the Second World War. "It was my nana's."

He nodded, "I see. Well, are you planning on using it again?"

She shook her head slowly.

That brightened him up a little, "Great! What's your name?"

"M-Maria."

Lex held out a hand, "Nice to meet you, Maria. What do you call that place down there?" He said, pointing down at the town filled with people.

"We call it The Last Refuge."

"That's fitting. Let's go down, shall we?"

Without turning to look at her, Alexander Lewis began to walk down the hill. A moment later a nervous girl loosely holding a small pistol followed him.