Spoilers for Ward, the sequel to Worm, up to Arc 19.2

Light 1.1

"Bath time!" a cheerful voice emanated from nowhere and I felt my hearts still.

No, no they couldn't make me go. I had power, I had skills, I had experience. They couldn't make me go, not like this, not right now, not ever.

"No fuss no muss," said the voice as faceless men and women appeared on either side of me. Green and black muck spilled from their faces as they began to drag me down the aisle, despite my desperate cries and frantic struggles. No arm reached them, none of my teach latched onto their necks, and my aura only made them vomit out more muck. Sometimes a bone would go with it. Cat, dog, human skeletons were littering the floors.

I struggle and strained as we appeared in the cube, the despot of despair, the shower stall where I was laid bare. I cried as their limbs took hold of me, thin and prodding hands digging into excess flesh, feeling pain despite the fact that is was only cloth they tore from.

I was exposed once more and I couldn't escape myself.

The staring and commentary began.

"Poor thing."

"Stronger than she looks."

"So hard to look at."

"Can we be done here?"

"Are you going to fight me again?"

"Do I have permission to clean you there?"

"Can you feel this?"

"Your Dad couldn't make it."

"Your Mom couldn't make it."

"Your sister and boyfriend are here to see you."

The showers turned on, the rush of water drowning out the voices and washing away the staring faceless helpers..

My fingers on my right hand were carving against the bathroom stall, digging into concrete and feeling the water and dust roll off me with a sensation beyond touch.

My other right hand slammed into the tile floor, trying desperately to crush the reflection in the water.

Useless. Faces to the left and right of me would haunt me, expressions and features so familiar but... different. Expanded, detailed, twisted. Dead inside.

The water was cold, freezing, and my power was useless in keeping it out. I tried to scream, to rend this reality with just the force of my lungs, but this monument of desire could only translate this rage into a guttural moan.

'I'm so cold. Always cold. It can't just be the water.'

A knight in gunmetal gray stood to my left, docile limbs, unmoving but always there. I wanted him to be comforting but all I got was distance.

A cowardly woman cloaked in red was trapped to my right side, mewling, always out of reach of my rending limbs. I wanted to erase her existence, but it felt like she was getting closer and closer.

'I want to end my existence. Ours.'

Above me, taking up an eternity of ceiling and space and time, a weak and tiny fragment of something greater looked down on me with adoration and glory. There was comfort there that the Knight could give, safety that the foolish woman would never compromise, but to reach out to this tiny giant was to compromise something that I couldn't articulate.

'Ours.' The thought was both of us, thinking in sync.

Below me, taking up eons of tile and sustaining itself within an abyss of knowledge, an all-seeing and all-craving being of something older watched me with curiosity and hunger. There was nothing comforting in the Knight, only the obsession of the feeble traitor sister, and to look too deep into this well of desire was to give up all that was I and Ours.

"Mine." The deliverance was none of Ours, solely it's own.

Within that abyss, crawling languidly into life were an infinitum of tentacles and soulless eyes, reaching up and up and up and wanting Me. Us. Ours.

Behind that space and time, piercing through with urgency and care were the multi-limbed light-essence of my partner, grasping and shielding Me. Us. Ours.

Between both beings beyond my existence, I felt torn- shattered- separated- protected- whole- together-

Was this how things were set to be for eternity?

The way things were now?

A thought, one that was all too familiar.

"F-Fuck that."

My eyes opened and I immediately regretted it. Biting cold stung my eyes, causing me to wince, feeling as if I had drunk an entire bottle of tequila without something to chase it down.

That was a basis in fact, a side-note in my every embarrassing high-school state of mind, trying to impress the very handsome Dean Stansfield at one of countless high-school parties. Of course, back then it was simply light itself that made me wish I could destroy my own eye-sockets, rather than this offensive cold.

A shuddering breath escaped me, and I could feel my lips crack. I kept my eyes closed, focused on my breathing.

I took a moment to center myself, feeling the cold radiate across my body, goosebumps rising up in flesh that was sculpted to be similar to my own. There were too many sounds; creaking of wood, birds in the distance, maybe running water? Too much to take in at once, but if I could piece together what was what, I could-

"Hey, you. You're finally awake." A gruff voice spoke up, interrupting my thoughts.

"You were trying to cross the border right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there."

I blinked, slowly, carefully trying to find the voice without hurting myself in the process. "Ambush? Who-"

A bump sent me sliding slightly, my back slapping against what felt like a short wooden barricade. I instinctively reached out for a handhold, something to keep me upright, and was further shocked to find that moving one arm dragged the other with it.

It was a flash of panic, a memory given vividness despite my lack of clear sight, of trying to move my hands to reach out to her and finding my control lacking. Confused and ripped away from myself. Every day a struggle to perform even basic tasks like typing on a keyboard or tugging at my braided hair.

"Damn you Stormcloaks!" A voice to my right, "Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy."

Full of vitriol, I wouldn't have been surprised if they literally spat the words out.

Ignore them. Look at your hand. Focus. Piece these things together. Be the badass you know you are.

"If they hadn't been looking for you, I could have stolen that horse and be half way to Hammerfell!"

Slowly, always slowly, I raised up my right arm. Felt that pull that brought my left with it. I stamped down on the fear, ignored my heart hammering in my chest, and moved my left arm as well. Moved them both.

There. A delay. Different sensations. A rocking motion set me sliding slightly again.

Am I in a car?

I brought my hands in front of me, strained my eyes. A rope. A knot to be specific, tying my wrists together. I opened and closed fists, even as I fought back tears in my eyes, relief overflowing my senses. The scars on my hand and right arm were apparent. Mine.

Mine.

"You there." I turned, eyes wide now. A man bound in ropes like I was sat diagonally from me, face scrunched up and nostrils flaring. His black hair was unkempt, and by my estimate, hadn't been washed in days. His clothing could barely be called such, like if something stitched together a potato sack and gave it openings for limbs.

When he spoke, he spoke with a fervent anger, "You and me - we shouldn't be here. It's these Stormcloaks the Empire wants!"

The voice who had spoken to me the first time, to my left, "We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief."

"Shut up back there!" Another man. Too many sounds.

I rubbed my eyes, feeling the headache pulse.

I glanced at the original speaker. A muscular man, easily filling out his chainmail costume, adorned with what looked green cloth in this dreary weather. His hair was should length and dark-blonde, a trimmed beard gracing a sharp face. He was watching the other man - the "thief' - with an expression I couldn't read. The man who shouted was so close I could literally touch him if I wanted, his back to me as they drove... not a car, but a carriage.

Now I could smell it. Horses and their waste, just like those times Aunt Sarah would drag us along to stables outside the city for short vacations.

I'm in a carriage, hands bound, surrounded by people I don't know talking about things I don't understand and I'm fucking freezing.

Figure this out Victoria, Glory Girl, Scholar, Warrior, Monk, Antares. Figure this out.

I looked down at myself. My costume was gone. Replaced with the same rags as the "thief", frumpy potato sacks with no sleeves and pant legs that barely reached my ankles. No buttons either, exposing more chest than I had done comfortably in years. Boots that I had scrounged a literal apocalypse for were gone and replaced with worn-out leather sandal slash slipper hybrids.

Someone had taken my stuff. Had undressed me, after ambushing me apparently, and taken me away from my teammates. Even my connection to Kenzie was gone, if not one of my blinks had activated her implanted eye-camera.

All while the world was suffering from it's second apocalypse?

Something is wrong.

I stood up in the carriage, my flight keeping me stable as the vehicle trotted over the bumpy path.

Are you there, old friend?

The man to my left looked up at me with curious eyes, "Take a seat lass, do not give your life in vain now-"

I felt my forcefield respond as I pulled against my bonds, tearing apart the rope like a string torn between two moving trucks.

Hello there. Had me worried Fragile One.

The driver glanced back to me, his expression one of shock and surprise, "What in the Divines are you doing-"

I took off, flying straight up into the air and through the mist. I was still cold, my forcefield unable to warm me up, but it was able to keep the chill from outside at bay. I experimented as I flew up, clenching hands, moving faces, and opening mouths. I rotated the field, feeling an equal measure of relief and anxiety as it responded.

Master-Stranger Protocols were in effect. There were too many variables and too many questions with too few answers.

When would they have had time to target me, plan this out to remove me from the field, and then carry it out during the Titan attacks?

How did they get past any Thinkers, my team, taken me by surprise,, and removed Kenzie's tech in the frantic moments of our constant rush from battlefield to battlefield?

Where could they have taken me that was beyond Warden or allied supervision in such a short amount of time, while I was surrounded by allies, and through various checkpoints between Earths?

The short answer was that they, he or she or them, couldn't.

My best guess was a Stranger-Shaker. My surroundings might be different from my last recollection of the battlefield, but the power effect warped it further to the point that imaginary scenarios were being filled out by some combination of my consciousness and their power. It could even be that this simulation was taking place while I was unconscious. Rain had mentioned a cape who invaded dreams and the Wardens had one who was dwelving into minds for Stranger Titan victims...

My heart sank.

I had blasted a hole into the section of the Shardspace, cracks in reality that led to the foundations of where powers belonged. I didn't recall much after that, but I did recall that the Stranger Titan had landed near me and had been regaining it's powers as I dived for my gun.

Is this it? My mind separated from reality, perhaps permanently, while my Team has to fight for themselves? My heroes left to the wolves? Those civilians left without a guardian?

Care to chime in there my ever-so-quiet friend?

Nothing.

Okay.

Fuck.

A cold entirely unrelated to my state of dress and the air around me took hold of my self. I glanced around me, seeing water sleeking off my many faces like slick glass. I had to look for cracks, pieces of this supposed reality that didn't fit. A fucking mountain of an obstacle when my surroundings where so alien, when my headspace was so fucked, and my heart had fell to a place somewhere around the bottom of my gut.

I pierced the mist layer, finally free of it's confines, and found myself surrounded by a dreary grey sky. Cracks, tears in space-time, perspectives that didn't correlate properly, feelings of space around me that felt jarring compared to what I was seeing. I looked for all of these flaws, every sense I had available and what my Fragile partner would grant me held to bare.

Nothing. No cracks, no erronous feelings of space and relativity, no vertigo or dulled senses. The air was thinner now.

I'd reached out for a life-line and all I got was mountains. So, so many mountains, capped with pure white snow, peaking out of the mist. Here and there were pockets of forest and what might have been parts of a settlement.

I hung in the air, out of place in the dull scenery, and struggled to articulate the feelings welling up inside me.

Help me out here. Please.

A brief moment. The words shot out like bullet, "Fucking why?!"