SIGN 1

Out in the frozen wasteland of Antarctica, a lone figure cladded in bright yellow armour drudged up a snow hill. It was struggling its way to a temporary shelter capping one of the many peaks overlooking the Helix Towers. As the armoured individual wrenched open the door, stepping into the warm, cramped interior of the metal hut their dome-shaped helmet hissed and clicked as it separated from the suit. Commander Hilux pulled it off quickly to let the warm air crash onto her face. "Christ it's a cold walk from the transport to here, once this is over, I think I'll take a job somewhere a bit warmer."

At the sudden commotion the other occupants of the hut all turned to the doorway to see a tall woman with shoulder-length black hair and what seemed a permanent frown dressed in the bright yellow of the Seon's commander armour. At once all three white armoured individuals jumped to their feet and snapped a salute "Good day Commander Hilux, Sir" they shouted in unison.

Hilux surveyed the men for a second, three un-remarkable grunts all uniformly dressed and groomed, more than likely a result of an indoctrination program, not worth remembering she thought to herself. She moved further into the hut squeezing in-between racks of equipment and supplies and moving to the table the men were stationed at. A long table with three computers lined up facing the only thing of note in the entire hut a large window with a clear view of the Helix Towers.

Clear was a bit of an overstatement, the small black mass that looked like a blemish on the white landscape outside no bigger than a thumbnail was their prize. Although for what they were planning on doing, this was close enough. "So, boys, who wants to bring me up to speed?" One of the men piped up his voice cracking with the fear of a schoolboy talking to a rather scary teacher. "Yes ma'am, sir I mean. The drone is on its way we had to delay take off because the winds were too strong, but it should be ready for your detonation command within the next two hours."

Pushing the 'ma'am' comment a side Hilux addressed the man with a grunt. She wasn't too happy she would be spending the next two hours in the musty room sitting on her hands, but it couldn't be helped. She calmed herself with the knowledge that soon Subject 24 would be disposed of and she would be able to take credit for the deed. Sure, she would need a nuke to do it but honestly, what did it matter what tool she used?  

"Keep an eye out men, let me know if anyone tries to leave the Towers, I'm going to catch a quick nap if anything changes wake me at once. Where are the beds?"

The three men turned around to her with a confused look on their faces "What? Did you not understand my orders?" Hilux barked back with annoyance.

One of the men addressed her, with the same vocal crack as before "No sir, we just don't have beds."

Hilux sighed and whispered under her breath "definitely an indoctrination unit."

Far from the eyes of Seon, below the range of their sensors deep beneath the ice their prize was unaware of the outside dangers. Even if they were aware they, frankly, were a bit too preoccupied with more immediate dangers to care. Jericho had just caught back up with Lillith and without a second to spare they were back into the fray; Olsen was hot on their heels.

At first, Jericho didn't see a point in fighting, for one he would be doing all the work he was the only one who could fight. Lilith was good with a gun but lacking one she was just an untrained psychic who thought she was a human he might as well be throwing her into a meat grinder. For two Olsen had no legs to speak of her only form of movement was to drag her lumbering body along the ground with the mass of tentacles that flooded from her tree-shaped torso, they could easily outrun her.

That however failed, while from afar Olsen couldn't influence the minds of Lilith and Jericho now with them so close, they were easy pickings. While she couldn't crush their minds unless she made contact, she could still change their perception of reality and flood their minds with noise which gave the two a splitting headache.

As such Jericho and Lilith found themselves unable to leave the gardens, each time they reached what they thought was a door it would transform into a blank wall. Feeling around the wall it seemed to be real as if the door was never there, forcing them to run off and look for another. All the while Olsen would be dragging herself closer, the sound of which thundered in their ears as if she was always right behind the two making it impossible to know exactly where Olsen was. All at the same time Olsen seemed to know exactly where they were, occasionally a tree would come crashing down from above ripped up by the roots landing feet from them. No matter how far they ran or in what direction whenever they stopped for a breather a tree would come crashing down.

"This is hopeless she has us trapped; we can't get away" Lilith screamed after the last tree slammed into the ground.

Breathing heavily Jericho nodded "Yes your right, we can't keep running, she'll catch us eventually at this rate" 

"What do we do now? We can't even hide from her."

"What do you mean? It's simple, isn't it?"

Lilith looked at Jericho in shock, if it was a simple matter why would he wait to tell her?  "What do you want us to do? Fight her?"

There was a pause after Lilith's question which just involved Jericho staring at her. 

"Well..." 

"No! No there’s no way you could think we..."

Lilith was cut off as the noise of another tree crashed through the canopy above them. Jericho lunged for Lilith dragging her out of danger. Olsen's voice rang in their minds. "Come on now lovelies looks like you're running out of steam."

Jericho turned to Lilith "Look she has backed us into a corner, with no way out, if we don't fight, we might as well give up. Besides it's not like you will be fighting, I don't expect you to, but you will need to stay close to me. We might not find each other again if we get separated the way Olsen is messing with our minds we won't know up from down."

Lilith didn't like the news, but Jericho was right, there wasn't any other option, and he did say she wouldn't be fighting, plus he said he wouldn't leave her so that was some comfort.  

"Alright, what's the plan?" Lilith steeled herself.

"First we need to find out where she actually is in the Garden, I'm sure she's hiding her movements well. But luckily for us her massive body will make it easy, we just need a good vantage point."  

Lilith looked around the Garden from their vantage point her eyes locked on to the large hill in the middle of the massive dome that housed an artificial waterfall. She thought about it for a second and she remembered that the peak of that hill had been visible from every area of the Garden. She didn't pay it much mind before, she was more focused on leaving and wasn't in the mood for taking in the landscaping. But now...

"Up there, we can see the whole Garden" she pointed drawing Jericho's attention. 

"That's perfect" Jericho made to run towards the hill, but Lilith went to stop him.

"Wait, what if she's up there?"

Jericho smiled "Then we will have found her".

Once the two reached the bottom of the hill Lilith seemed to lose some hope in the plan. The hill was steep and would take some time to climb. "We, won't make it, she'll fling trees at us before we get anywhere close to the top."

Jericho proceeds to scoop her up in his arms.

"What, what are you doing?" Lilith thrashed around and hit him in the head with her elbow.

"Ow stop it my head is hurting enough, sorry but we need to speed this up, hold on tight"

Before Lilith could protest any further Jericho had crouched down and launched up into the air clearing 10 feet easily as Lilith began to scream. They were about to slam into the sheer side of the hill, but Jericho caught them with two large spider-leg-shaped spikes that shot out from his back. Lilith screamed louder.

"Please stop that, I need to concentrate" Jericho muttered as he braced his feet in some foot holds, then launched them again into the air. Lilith continued to scream.

Jericho repeated the movements until they were on top of the hill. Lilith pushed and squirmed out of Jericho's arms falling to the ground. Her hands grasping at the ground like she thought she would float away if she didn't hold on to something.

"Don't do that again!" She couldn't even look at him, she knew Jericho wasn't normal but knowing and experiencing it were two different things. 

Laughing Jericho said, "I can't promise that. We still need to get down."

Lilith turned to glare at him but suddenly remembered that Olsen could be right in front of them she turned back to the small bushel of trees ahead of them and whispered to Jericho.

"Do you think..." 

Before she could finish Jericho had stretched out an arm into a black whip with a white edge that flicked through the trees with a crack. A second later the trees fell apart with a neat cut at their base. Flummoxed Lilith let slip "You're a monster."

"I know, she's not here let's get to work" Jericho moved forward but stopped.

"What is it?" Lilith said her voice choked with fear.

"Does your head hurt less?"

Now that he said it the pounding in her head wasn't as bad as it was a second ago, in fact, the scraping noise also seemed a bit more distant as well.

"Yeah, now that you mention it, do you think we have put some distance between us and her?" 

With a smile Jericho turned to Lilith "I think we have, now we also know how to judge how close we are to our prey."

Their small victory was interrupted however by the rushing sound of leaves coming from above. Another tree was falling towards them, thankfully this one missed and slammed into the base of their lookout.

"Looks like she is already gunning for us, Lilith you take that side and keep an eye out for the next tree." Jericho said as he spun around scanning the forest beneath them, the next time Olsen lobbed her next tree they would know.

After seconds of silence that felt to stretch on for minutes Jericho caught sight of the next tree flying into the air. With his enhanced sight given to him by his release the sudden movement might as well have been a spark in the night. As he turned to grab Lilith...

"Over here" Lilith sang out pointing off in the opposite direction. 

Sure enough, there was another tree rocketing up from the ground, in fact glancing around Jericho could see several other trees either launching from the ground or already in mid-air coming down on them.  

"Lilith, come over here now!" Jericho yelled as he raced to the middle of the plateau. Without hesitation, Lilith met him in half a heartbeat. 

"Are there others down there?" She asked grabbing onto Jericho's arm as she looked up taking in the barrage coming at them.  

"Not likely" Jericho said stepping away from Lilith as his arms blackened, melted like wax and fell to the ground in long slick tentacles that ended in massive black spheres that looked as hard as iron. With some effort, he began to swing his new limbs back and forth building up momentum to lift the massive spheres and fling them into the air. 

The massive spheres flew up to meet the falling foliage, instead of the expected crackling sound of splitting timber. Silents persisted as Jericho's attack passed through the first tree unabated as it blew apart like mist.

"They are illusions!" Lilith yelled in shock. 

"One has to be real." Jericho grunted as he pivoted and used the momentum from the first blow to swing the next arm into the second tree.

This one also blew apart like mist as the massive ball passed through it. This was frustrating, Jericho needed to attack each Illusion with the strength needed to blow away a real tree just in case the next one was real.

This was exhausting work, and he wouldn't be able to keep it up for long, they needed to find Olsen's whereabouts quickly. After three more Illusionary trees Jericho's swings encountered a real one, which cracked and snapped as it was knocked off its path flying to the far side of the garden.

"Lilith! Eyes on the ground below, don't look for trees look for any other movement, Olsen will be readying her next shot." Lilith didn't even glance back at Jericho she dashed to the edge of the hilltop and began scanning the ground.

Her eyes darted across the ground below looking for the slightest hint of movement. There was no wind or animals in the forest below her, it was more like a painting of a dark nightmarish landscape than a real forest.

Suddenly a tree shoots out of the ground in the corner of her eye, she gasps for a moment but court herself. While it did look like the tree came out of the ground in that spot nothing else around the tree was disturbed by the movement, like the tree simply jumped out of the ground with all the grace of a gymnast.

Lilith jumped to her feet and moved to another spot on the hilltop, quickly she glanced back at Jericho, who was still swinging his massive ball-tipped tentacles at the storm of trees falling on them. Suddenly Jericho smashed away another real tree, she glanced around but there were so many trees trying to guess the origin of one seemed impossible.

"I think that one came from the left" Jericho said with his concentration still locked on the task at hand. 

Had he been keeping track of all the trees in the air? No matter Lilith was moving to the left side of the hilltop before she had time to question him.

Again, she took in the scene below her looking for the smallest rustle, a hint of some out-of-place movement. The world seemed to fade away as she concentrated on the scene below her, all she could hear was the faint hum of Jericho's arms orbiting above her as they cut through the air.

Lilith was about to give up, she had caught sight of four other illusions while Jericho had batted away two other trees. When another tree flew up from the far edge of her sight, it was to her right, but the lip of the hill blocked her sight of that area. She was ready to disregard it as another illusion when Jericho smacked it out of the air. At once Lilith turned and dived to the right hitting the ground and almost sliding right off the top of their vantage point.

"You see something?" Jericho yelled out.

"Wait, wait." Her eyes scanned the ground below, relatively close to the base of the hill Lilith caught sight of a tree swaying back and forth like it was been twisted out of the ground by a giant invisible hand. In between the trembling leaves, there was a hint of bright red, a massive bulbous eye staring up at her.

"THERE!" Lilith screamed out before she suddenly felt her body being wrenched up into the air.  

Jericho took his eyes from the skyline of falling trees and locked on to Lilith. She was pointing to a spot below maybe a hundred meters from the base of the hill. Where a tree twisted out of the ground and launched into the air.

In one fluid movement, Jericho whipped one of his massive extended arms around in Lilith's direction letting the momentum of the swing guide him as he jumped off the ground. As he came down on her, his other arm began to shrink, the ball at the end disappeared, however he stopped it from going back to normal. It was still somewhat tentacle shaped as it securely wrapped itself around Lilith's waist.

Now the next part would always be argued between Lilith and Jericho whenever they would retell the story. Lilith would be adamant that she never screamed, but Jericho would always laugh, and say she screamed louder than ever. As it happened Jericho had to deactivate his Release for a moment, just to give himself some relief from the pain his enhanced hearing gave him, as Lilith's scream was deafening. It was his fault admittedly he could have given her a warning. However, the explosion of the tree slamming into the ground they were just standing on, seemed to even the scales in his mind, making it all a little comical to him.

Olsen was panicking, she had never been in a fight before, not even one as a child on the playground let alone against a full-grown Brute and this one was Seon's most wanted. She was terrified as well as furious, Subject 24 had robbed her of her new body and a new life, and he needed to pay. If she could summon followers, it would be all too easy to do away with him, however, all those that were close were now dead, drowned by Subject 24's reckless destruction of the walkway.

There was still a few trudging through the Helix towers, but it would take time for them to get here. Could she hold Subject 24 off for that long? Keeping him and the girl here was easy they were close enough that she could affect their minds but if they attacked could she win?

She had taken to a tactic of hiding herself and keeping the two running in circles, but that wasn't working anymore, they had retreated to the top of the hill in the middle of the garden in an effort to search for her. They were changing tactics; they might be looking to go on the offensive.

Suddenly a loud scream filled the air as a mass of body parts came slamming down from the sky, landing meters from Olsen. The two bodies parted as one with bright red hair squirmed out from the other's grip, breathing heavily and punching and slapping the tall blue-haired one. Subject 24 didn't seem to be angry, determined or even stoic, he was laughing.

"I told you to stop screaming, now get up you're keeping the doctor waiting." Jericho laughed at Lilith.

"Shut up, why didn't you..." Lilith caught herself as she looked up at the fleshy tree before them.

Was this a joke to them? Did they think she was so weak they could take her lightly? Olsen suddenly forgot her fear and was gripped by a white-hot rage. She pushed out her mind, to create a pressure that could overwhelm those before her.

Suddenly the headache Lilith and Jericho felt doubled and tripled, the pain was unbearable, Lilith fell to the ground clutching her head Jericho faltered for a moment but stumbled forward and began to sprint at Olsen, his arms bulging and expanding with clawed tipped hands. With 3 large blades for fingers each a foot long made of sharpen white bone he plunged at the horrific verdure.

For a second Olsen thought that Subject 24 had found a way to resist her attack, but the look of pain in his eyes told her, he was simply pushing through the agony to fight. She tried to double her efforts, but he was too close now and was readying his attack. She broke her concentration and sent a projection to Jericho, a very subtle one, he wouldn't even notice but it would make it look as though Olsen was moving to the left when she moved to the right.

It worked, Jericho saw Olsen try to move out of his path of attack by shifting her massive body to the left, but she was too slow. He leaped in the air and lashed his clawed arm out carving out her eye. But his hand passed harmlessly through the air with absolutely no resistance. Hitting the ground Jericho turned around trying to see what had happened. He was too slow; a tentacle came flying into his side lifting him off his feet and slamming him into the tree.

"What's the matter Subject 24? Eyes not what they once were?" Olsen mocked throwing another barrage of tentacles. These missed Jericho as he quickly recovered and was back on his feet ready to attack again.

"My name is Jericho! Quit it with that stupid number!" he yelled as he swung out at one of Olsen's outstretched tentacles, cutting it off in 3 segments. Olsen let out a pained scream, but Jericho didn't let up the more damage he could do the better. 

He jumped forward at Olsen again, she tried the same illusionary trick, however, Jericho was ready this time as she moved, spikes erupted from Jericho's back shooting off in different directions. One stabbed into an illusion passing through the air the other slammed into an empty space in the air, using the spike pulled himself into the space readying an attack.

Olsen dropped her projection and, in a panic, flicked up tentacles to push Jericho away. Jericho reflexively battered it aside, but his arm passed right through them, and then he was clubbed by an unseen mass forcing him to the ground. 

"What's the matter? Having trouble seeing what's in front of you?" Olsen mocked as she slowly advanced on Jericho. Jericho pushed himself to his feet breathing heavily, the effects of the Heart Cutter were beginning to fade, and he could feel his strength starting to wither. He was going to need to end things quickly.

"Well, let me show you what you really face!" As Olsen yelled a forest of tentacles blossomed from her. This illusion was meant to confuse and overwhelm Jericho, but luckily this wasn't the first time he had fought someone like this.

"It's too bad, I already know how to fight someone who uses illusions!" Jericho mocked as both his arms cracked into long blades and six black crab-like legs burst from his back each tip with bone-white scythe blades. "You just need to lay waste to everything!"

Olsen cackled "If you think you can maintain it then be my guest." A sudden pain crushed down on Jericho's head Olsen was assaulting his mind, unlike his fight with Ely, this one would be far more difficult, however this time he was unrestrained.

As Olsen launched her attack flailing both her real and illusionary limbs at Jericho, he too closed in on her. The flailing tentacles moved with speed that would have been hard to trace for a normal person, but thanks to his enhanced vision given to him by his Release, Jericho could see each one as clear as day. He couldn't tell the difference between the real one and the fakes so it was best to cut everything. But the real threat came from the ones he couldn't see a single hit from them could be enough to brake his concentration. So, to remove the distraction of the movements he made the bold choice to close his eyes.

He didn't need to see he just needed to create a never-ending defence that would shred the air around him, while he focused on the unending pain filling his skull. The pain increased the closer he was to Olsen's mind; at this range the changes were almost unnoticeable. But he could feel the smallest difference whenever he moved, it did mean however he needed to focus on increasing the pain.

Once Olsen saw Jericho close his eyes she was filled with a sense of overconfidence. Thinking this was a sign of weakness she doubled her efforts to crush Jericho and began to flail wildly at him. She didn't want to drop the illusion in case this was a bluff or if he changed his mind and opened his eyes, she was focused solely on reducing the man to a puddle of pounded meat.

To Lilith the sight was uncanny, there was Olsen who seemed to be standing still. Her massive body standing straight and unmoving as a blur of writhing tentacles flew below her. They flowed over Jericho like a flood water, engulfing the man. It was hard to concentrate on the fight, she was still gripping her head, and the pain of being so close to Olsen was unbearable, how was Jericho moving like he was?

Jericho was spinning, hacking and leaping around while the legs on his back moved around madly cutting at nothing and everything, he resembled a spinning top that was only gaining momentum as he spun and did, he? Have his eyes closed? What was he doing was he trying to show off? 

It seemed like nothing was happening, Jericho's attacks were passing through the tentacles unharmed like the two entities were overlapping images of each other. But suddenly Olsen screamed as blood flashed up and out of the writhing mess. Jericho had done it Lilith thought for a moment, but why was he speeding up? And was he moving away from Olsen?

"Jericho..." Lilith was about to warn him but then she heard it, the unmistakable sound of something massive being dragged along the ground. A tree rustled a bit to the left of Olsen like something was pushing on it, which also happened to be the direction Jericho was moving. How could he come up with a tactic for such an outrageous circumstance like this on the fly? Had he fought things like this before? Were creatures like this common in the world? The fear of the thought gripped her chest and made it hard to breathe, but Lilith calmed herself "No don't think about that yet, I need to just focus on this here and now but what can I do?" These thoughts raced through her mind when a sudden guttural roar rang out from Olsen completely capturing her attention.

It looked like Jericho had cut through the empty air, but blood had erupted from his blades, with a large tentacle appeared out of nowhere and landed on the ground with a thud. He had completely cut off one of Olsen's tentacles at the base. Before he could press the attack, he stopped suddenly as his arms snapped to his side and began to rise slowly in the air. Olsen seemed to snap to a different position like a video skipping ahead a few seconds as she dropped her illusion. She was now covered in small bleeding cuts with a massive bloody stump that was bleeding freely. Olsen screamed out in their minds, "How dare you, trash, I may not be after your body, but I will take what comes to me!"

Lilith's heart seemed to stop, as a tentacle-like the one that almost engulfed her to steel her mind away from her body was now expanding over Jericho. If Olsen took Jericho's body, what would happen to her? Jericho was strong and against him, she would be like a gnat.

Panic gripped her heart, as the fleshy cone slammed down on Jericho covering him down to his shoulders. But she felt a bit of relief? Or was it confusion, perhaps a mix of both as she could swear, she heard Jericho laughing moments before he was silenced. A half second passed as Olsen began her mind transfer when large black pointed cones erupted from the cocoon of fleshy tentacles that covered Jericho's body. The sudden appearance of these black cones was accompanied by Olsen's monstrous scream and a splattering of blood. 

Reflexively Olsen through Jericho to the side revealing his body covered in these spikes with a triumphant grin on his face as he slammed into a nearby tree. Lilith ran over to his crumpled body, as he wasn't getting up straight away.

"Jericho, are you ok?" Lilith said in a panic.

Laughing "Yeah, I'm fine, I just need a second." The noise of bones cracking came from his body as he pulled himself into a sitting position. Lilith looked over him, one of his arms and legs were broken and pointing in different directions and he was covered in gashes and blood. Not to say for certain how much was his or Olsen's, but the wounds were closing, and his limbs were snapping back into place. It looked gross and immensely painful, but he was smiling, nonetheless.

"Guess she didn't know, you never want to get into close combat with a Shifter, let alone grab them." Jericho said as he looked at Lilith's pained face. she was doing it rough, going from the realisation the world she lived in was a lie, to seeing monstrous nightmares, and now watching manic mutants hacking away at each other. The stress from the situation must be horrible, he needed to end this quickly so they could leave and finally rest.

But before Jericho could let the fantasy of finally resting sink in, he and Lilith were bombarded with crushing pressure in their minds. The constant attack Olsen had been hitting their minds with seemed to have increased. Olsen must have been getting desperate to finish this and was now pushing herself to dominate the two. 

Through the pain Jericho, clutching his head in a vain attempt to sooth himself, tried to get a look at Olsen to see what she was planning next. But his vision was filled with the sight of the wooden bark of a massive tree feet from his head. It took him a few seconds to gather what he was looking at; the tree wasn't moving rather it had simply stopped. Scanning the tree, he noticed Lilith standing in front of him one hand also on her head, the other on the trunk of the tree. Black smoke seemed to be floating softly from her hand and coating the tree, she had a shocked look on her face as she glanced from the tree to Jericho and back.

From Lilith's perspective, it seemed like everything was falling apart, Jericho was holding his own, but for how much longer? Eventually, he would run out of steam, then where would they be? Olsen's attack had brought back the memory of her capture, and a fear gripped her that she might lose her body soon and be trapped here forever with Jericho's corpse, completely alone. Her body was beginning to feel hot again, but the pain in her head distracted her from the heat. Again, in her desperation she could feel deep inside her, a power that she had always felt but until now never needed. Slowly, she took hold it as it began to leak into her, making her feel complete. Like it was filling a piece of herself she never knew she was missing, when she suddenly felt something move behind her.

It was an odd sensation, like a bubble had formed around her but was also connected to her like her skin extended meters away from her body. In that bubble, something was moving through it and fast. Reflexively she shot out her hand to try and slow whatever it was, while the power she felt reacted in kind. Like it was giving her exactly what she needed in that moment energy flooded up her arm and out.

Her hand met a firm wooden surface, stinging as it slapped into it. A massive gust of wind flowed over her making her stagger, but she held firm. Slowly she opened her eyes to examined whatever it was that she had just caught. Her breath caught in her throat as the sight of the massive tree trunk seemed to be floating next to her engulphed her vision. The thin wisps of black smoke pouring from her hand covering every inch of the wood, reminded her of a slowly smouldering piece of incense. But the wood wasn't burning it just sat there still and unmoving. She turned to look at Jericho to see what he had done but the look of fear on his face was unnerving. 

"Wha..." But before Lilith could get out a word, Jericho had scrambled to his feet and began sprinting away. 

"Don't come near me Lilith, just wait there!" Jericho screamed out not bothering to look back at her. He was treating her like a monster now. The smoke on her hand suddenly burst into flames as the tree slammed into the ground. Lilith screamed as the flames suddenly engulfed her body. 

As Jericho ran from Lilith ducking under branches and leaping over rocks the memories of his childhood and what he had learnt from his mother played over and over in his mind. When a Psychic child uses their powers for the first time, it happens with a bang like their powers need to rework their bodies so they can use them. Memories of his friends setting fields on fire, encasing their homes in ice and reading the minds of everyone in the village haunted him. The children were always fine, their powers could never hurt them, but anyone nearby could always suffer the fallout. 

The powers of children were always weak, any adult could brush them aside, but he remembered that one day one of the girls in town suddenly blew apart the town hall during a meeting. She was a few years older than what was normal for a Psychic to develop their powers and the result even injured some of the stronger Brutes and Psychics in the village. After the event he remembers asking his mother why it was so much more devastating this time. She told him the longer it takes for a Psychic to develop their powers the more powerful their first time becomes.

His mother also added "it was a good thing she was only a Telekinetic and not a Multikinetic" When Jericho asked what the difference was, he would always remember what she said, it wasn't an important memory but something that he could always recall. His mother answered "You know how Alice can move stuff with her mind now? How she covers her hands in that white smoke and whatever she wants to move with her mind also has that white smoke all over it? Well, when a Multikinetic does the same thing, the smoke is black."

Jericho didn't understand why that was so bad, so his mother continued. "Multikinetics can use other forms of kinesis not just Telekinesis, depending on the individual they could also be a pyrokinetic, electrokinetic or anything else, the black smoke is just an indicator. If Alice had been a Multikinetic all the forms of kinesis would have exploded out of her in equal force. If that had happened many people could have died."

Now the same thing was about to happen here, underwater and he couldn't do anything to help Lilith. In fact, she would be fine, practically unharmed, he was the one in danger. What was this going to look like, how many years had her powers been building? They were about to run unchecked as they flooded out from her all at once. Jericho tripped and stumbled and bounced off a tree, soon he would be out of time and had no were else to go, so he latched on to the nearest tree, fingers bursting into makeshift claws as they dug into the wood, closing his eyes and hoping for the best.

Olsen found herself being blinded by a bright light, it was hard to look at, "What are those two doing over there? Did they start a fire or something?" The light was too bright to be a simple fire, it had to be something more. That’s when the light started to rise into the air as black smoke poured from whatever it was. Thinking about it for a second Olsen concluded that it must be Lilith, was this her power? What a splendid display, maybe if Olsen could play this right, she might still be able to get Lilith's body. Suddenly large bolts of lightning sprung forth from Lilith crackling the air and burning the ground. Olsen shrank back a little, maybe Lilith wasn't in complete control...

Suddenly the light expanded from a vaguely humanoid shape into a rapidly expanding ball that filled the Garden. The force of it ripped trees completely from the ground, setting them ablaze as they flew into the air then finally being blasted apart by incalculable bolts of electricity.

Sign 2

Hilux made her way back to the observation window wiping sleep from her eyes, a blizzard had kicked up causing the drone carrying the payload to land temporarily until the winds died down. This had dragged out the operation timeframe a few more hours. Luckily, she had managed to get a few hours of sleep on some boxes stacked in the back of the hut. This wasn't an easy task; the one-room hut was packed with the musty smell of four people, none of which had the luxury of a bath in some time.

She was in a particularly foul mood with the team, just as she had managed to fall asleep, one felt it necessary to wake her regarding a disturbance a sensor had picked up from within the Towers.

"Commander..."   

"What?!" Hilux snapped at one of the timid grunts, however, she didn't deem it necessary to look at the man and continued to glare at the small dot on the horizon that was the Helix Towers.  

"Are you ready for the report on the disturbance we recorded from the Towers?"

Hilux sighed and pinched the corners of her eyes, why did it matter? The place was about to be vaporised, but when it came to indoctrination units if you didn't play everything by the book, they would hound you until you gave in. 

"Fine, what does it say" 

One of the men jumped to his feet with a handful of papers and began reading out in a bland robotic voice "Approximately an hour ago, sensors outside the Helix Towers picked up abnormal seismic activity. Sensors we still have access to within the facility detected a large heat, electrical and radiation signature located coming from a part of the facility below the ice. The anomaly sustains a constant reaction for 1 minute and then disappeared completely. We recommend that we postpone the cleansing of the Helix Towers until a full report can be completed on this event."

As soon as the grunt finished speaking Hilux responded with a flat "no". 

"But commander..."

"Listen, soldier, I don't care about protocol at this point we have orders to destroy this facility as it and its contents pose a significant threat to the Seon Empire. Its destruction is of top priority, do you understand?"  

Without hesitation, the 3 men in the room snapped back, "Yes commander!" And returned to their work. Under her breath, Hilux muttered to herself "I'll be damned if I have to stay here any longer than necessary."

"Give me an ETA on the drone"

"One hour ma’am!"

Lilith's eyes shot open; she couldn't remember when she lost consciousness, but she was now lying on her back staring at the iron dome dotted with flashing yellow lights, like a simplified version of the night sky.

As the memories came back to her she shot upright patting herself down, examining her body for burns or wounds. The memory of her skin bursting a light played across her mind, she remembered being terrified, but the fire didn't burn, it hardly even hurt. A memory of flying and a blinding bright light flashed in her mind, but nothing after that. Her body didn't feel the same, it was like she was lighter, and moving felt like it took less effort, she felt... good, like she had finally recovered from a horrible illness, she did however have a dreadful ringing in her ears.

She stood up to take in the site around her to see if Jericho was near by, or if Olsen was lurking around her, but what she saw shocked her so much she crumpled back to the ground. The overgrown forest that had surrounded her seconds ago was gone. All around her was a flattened black surface, the ground scorched and covered in ash. Random sections of the ground were pockmarked with chunks of glass that reflected the flashing lights above. Giving the scene an eerie magical twinkle.

Lilith turned around on the spot and couldn't see any trace of Jericho or Olsen. "Jericho!" She yelled out but got no response. Looking into the distance she was once again blown back by the destruction around her. What trees hadn't been burnt up, rocks and twisted metal of fencing were all crushed up against the walls of the dome. As her hearing began to clear, she was gripped by a new feeling of panic. The noise of rain filled the air, her eyes scanned the domed sky above her, there were signs of water pouring down, droplets caught in the flashing yellow lights.

The metal dome had buckled and shifted from the explosion of Lilith's powers awakening, and what remained of the glass behind the shutters had cracked and imploded from the water pressure. The emergency shell wouldn't hold for much longer and would soon give way. While Lilith couldn't be certain of all this, she knew that if water was making its way into the garden, its time was limited.

Now with even more panic, she ran around in circles trying to look through the darkness into the ring of debris that surrounded her, looking for Jericho, Olsen or an exit, anything that could give her some hope. As if willing to be able to see more with her eyes they responded. It felt like they throbbed in their sockets for a second and more light flooded into them. She could see clearer than normal, and she had this sense that she could see things she couldn't normally.

Looking at the lights above her it seemed like there were thin glowing lines that connected them all. Was that the wiring? The electricity maybe? It didn't matter that wouldn't help her at this moment. Glancing around she saw two things she hadn't noticed before. There were two bright spots she hadn't noticed before in the clustering of destruction.

One was larger than the other, it had a red tinge to the light it gave off and felt almost familiar like it was her, but not her at the same time. The other smaller one was tinged with blue, it was foreign in every way, but she had this feeling that it was something she had felt before. Lilith had a choice to make, these bright spots she knew had to be Jericho and Olsen, but which was which?   

Was Jericho the larger one that felt like her? Or the smaller foreign one? Jericho had referred to himself as a Brute, and Olsen kept calling her a Psychic. Lilith guessed Olsen would have been a Psychic as well, after all with all the power she had displayed forcing yourself into someone's mind was something a Psychic could do, right? While heading to the red light felt like the right choice, like running to an old friend's side, Lilith decided the blue was the better option. It was smaller after all, maybe that meant whoever it was, was weak meaning she could run if she was wrong.

As she closed in on the blue light, she could see it was coming in from within a pile of broken, smouldering tree trunks, which rustled and pulsed as someone within tried to push them aside. For a moment she hesitated and cautiously she spoke "Jericho... Jericho, is that you" bracing herself to turn and run. A familiar voice responded.

"Lilith? Glad you're ok, could you give me a hand?" 

Relieved Lilith leaned down, placed her hands on the trunk of a tree and readied to push. 

"Ok, one, two, three." With great effort, Lilith pushed on the tree, but it didn't budge.

She repeated her attempt but nothing, Jericho wasn't even helping, for a moment she panicked, did something happen to him? "Are you still there?"

"Yeah, hurry up, its hot in here the trees are still smouldering"

Annoyed she barked back at him "I can't move this on my own, I'm not strong like you!"

"Are you trying to move the trees with your muscles?" Jericho responded calmly  

"Yes, of course!" What was Jericho talking about, did he get paid to be annoying? 

"Why?" 

"Why..." She paused for a second, Jericho was right, why was she trying to move the trees with her strength? She had just caught a tree, it felt like it was nothing, she just needed to do the same thing again.

"How, do I do that again... Without..." She stopped looking over the devastation surrounding them. 

"Don't worry about that, it only happens once, thankfully. As for using your powers... I don't know." 

"What do you mean you don't know? You were all blades and body horror not just a minute ago. How do I do that?" Maybe someone did pay him to be annoying.

"No, I mean I'm a Brute not a Psychic like you, I'm not sure how you would use your abilities. But if they are anything alike, the best way I can think to explain it would be, that your powers are like an extra limb, they have always been there and your body knows how to use them, you just need to practice with them. It's like a child learning to walk, you have all the tools you need to do it, you just need to figure out how to put them into motion." Jericho explained in a usually calm voice.

"You've already done it once... Just do it again." That made things a little bit clearer, except for that last part, if she could just do it again, she would have already.

If her powers are meant to come to her as naturally as breathing, then it should be easy. She thought back to when she stopped the tree, she didn't think about using any magical ability to stop it, she just acted, and her body followed her lead. But there was a bit more to it she was grasping for power in the moment and her body gave it to her.  

She readied herself, placing her hands on a tree and instead of lifting, she closed her eyes searching for that feeling of power again. This time she felt a warmness flowing through her body, it moved and shifted like a living creature floating around in her blood. This wasn't the same as before, before she would have described it as lightness incarnate, like everything it touched would be weightless including herself. But what she found felt like a restless snake of flickering light, for a moment it felt like the black smoke from before but changed into different unfamiliar sensations.  She sighed in frustration.

"What is it?" Jericho asked in his calm manner that seemed far too out of place for the situation.

"I can't do it, every time I think I've found the power it changes, and I don't know how to use what it changes to."

"You don't need to wait for it to be what you want it to be. It's yours master it, manipulate it to what you want, you own the power it doesn't own you." That sounded... empowering. Lilith thought Jericho was going to be afraid of her. The way he reacted when she caught the tree the look of horror on his face, terrified her. Not that she could blame him, after the destruction that followed, his reaction seemed almost expected. But now here he was patiently coaching her through her... development. That didn't seem like the right word, she didn't ask for this power, but she had it now and Jericho was walking her through how to use it. At least she had something to protect herself from Olsen if she came back.

As if on cue the pain from Olsen's mind washed over her. It was weaker than before and more chaotic like a wounded animal lashing out in the dark. But this time it didn't infect her thoughts it merely brushed along the surface of them.

"Jericho..." Lilith’s voice trembled for a moment.

"Don't worry about her, she's just throwing a tantrum, focus on the tree". He shot back in a calming tone.

Lilith took a deep breath and focused again, finding that writhing snake of light she focused on it willing it to act like that feeling of weightlessness. It pushed back, like it didn't want to take shape, but Lilith pushed on it with her mind and like snapping a lock closed, the power cracked into the feeling of weightlessness. She opened her eyes, her arms from her shoulders down to the tree were completely engulfed in thin wisps of black smoke.

With little effort, she began to raise the tree into the air, while it wasn't heavy, moving it was slow going as the air pushed back on the tree as the massive object passed through it. It was like flapping a massive paper fan. Once Lilith got the tree away from Jericho, she made to throw it, but as soon as her hands left the surface of the tree it slammed to the ground almost crushing her foot.

Just because she could move the tree didn't make her super strong, she was as strong as she ever was, and the tree just became lighter. She turned back to Jericho and could see a hand covered in blood giving her a thumbs up.

"Good start, now let's get the rest of me out" After a few moments of Lilith easily moving large tree trunks aside, the effort of which was non-existent for her, she had finally dug up her companion. 

"Look at you... with eye's wide open now, how do you feel?" Jericho said with a playful tone.

Lilith on the other hand looked down on him, with shock, horror and distress. "Jericho your..."

"Now, now don't you freak out on me..." Jericho's broken form lay below her, he was covered in blood, limbs broken, gaping wounds revealing muscle and organs, not to mention all the singed and burnt flesh. All these life-threatening wounds however seemed to be closing, skin sloughing off with fresh skin underneath and... were there extra bones growing on the outside of his body? 

"… when we are so close to winning." Despite his state, Jericho was smiling with a greedy glint in his eyes.  

Slowly the broken man climbed to his feet, bones cracking under his weight, like it was the first time they had been used. He stumbled up and out of his bed of broken trees.

"Are you ok? How can you move? You look like a corpse." Lilith said in disbelief.

"That's a good description, I definitely feel like one." Jericho looked down at his hand as he moved his fingers, opening and closing his hand, examining its performance.  

The backs of his hands and fingers were covered in what looked like white bones that traced his appendages and snaked their way up his arms and under his Jacket. The same bone peaks up the back of his neck and into his hair, if Lilith had to guess Jericho had these bones all over his body. He noticed her staring and addressed the strange sight. 

"My body is shot, without some rest, I won't be able to move for much longer, my muscles are at their limit and can barely move. I had to strip away some of their mass as well to fill in some of the holes. These bones help me keep moving for the time being, they're like an exoskeleton, but they don't make me any stronger."

As he spoke a thin blade slid out of his hand ending in a grip like a sword.  

"You think that will be enough?" Lilith said completely losing sight of the situation, the little white blade was only a meter long and compared to the other shapes and weapons Jericho had been changing his body into, this one seemed almost pitiful.

"At this point, it's a miracle I can still stand, Olsen's not doing much better either, that blast would have done a number on her." 

"How can you tell?"

"Take a look around" Lilith eyed the area but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. There was just a massive empty plain of scorched earth in front of them, and the ring of meters high debris crammed up against the walls. Then she looked closer at the ring, she noticed when Jericho started pointing at different parts it was just a repeating pattern of junk.

"Her illusions have gotten lazy; she must be either exhausted or her wounds are breaking her focus. Either way, she still isn't intending to let us go. Luckily, we have a full-fledged Psychic who can see through the Illusions now. Lilith, where is Olsen?"

Lilith looked over to the place she had seen the red light from before, but it was gone, she strained her eyes in the dark and caught sight of the dim red light slowly moving through the middle of the plain.

"She's just there close to the middle"

"Perfect, get a weapon and let's finish this." Jericho began to walk to the middle of the plain but stopped when Lilith didn't follow.

"Like what? I can't use this power for anything other than moving things and once I stop touching them they regain their mass and fall to the ground." Lilith said looking at the down, I'm still no good in a fight."

"Nonsense, let's get you something." Jericho smiled and wandered over to the mounds of trash behind them. After rummaging around he pulled out a long piece of mostly straight metal, it must have been a piece of hand railing before.

"Ok, we don't need to get into the weeds of it right now, we don't have time for it, but the short of it is that you are a Multikinetic. It's great news, means you are strong, and you will have a boatload of powers at your disposal. However, we are just going to focus on the one you know, telekinesis. That black smoke is a field you put off that can let you move things with your mind." He handed the pole to Lilith, and she gazed at him.

"I can move stuff with my mind?!" She explained in shock. 

"In time... maybe, but right now it's just barely a parlour trick, but that’s ok, even a trick can be a weapon if you wield it right. What I want you to do is concentrate on the poll with your powers and focus on the black smoke pushing everything away from it. Go on give it a go, give that log a swing." Jericho pointed to one of the many chunks of tree piled up beside them.

Lilith took a deep breath and focused on covering the poll in smoke, it quickly washed over it and danced on the surface making it weightless. She brought the poll above her head and slammed it down on the log.  

It bounced off the surface and the impact rung up her arms, she dropped the poll as her hands shook.

"No, you need to put more into it, you protected the poll from hitting the log, but you aren’t pushing anything away from the surface of it. If it helps, when I've seen someone else do this the whole pole was engulfed in smoke, you couldn't see the metal underneath."

Lilith readied herself again and poured more of her power into the pole, when it seemed like enough, she doubled it for good measure, her head was beginning to feel light, but she lifted the pole above her head and tried again.

This time the pole slid through the wood like a hot knife through butter, as she hit the ground the two halves of the log blasted apart, shooting twenty meters in either direction. For a moment she felt faint and stumbled and almost fell face-first on the ground. Jericho caught her and helped her back to her feet. 

"Great job, might have overdone it, but no one expects perfect control for a first timer. Just keep in mind your power isn't infinite, you'll exhaust yourself if you go too hard, but we only need to get one good hit in, do you think you've got one left?" Jericho clapped her on the back.

Breathing heavily Lilith Looked at him and smiled "Yeah, I think I can do it one more time, what do you have in mind?" 

"I'll grab her attention and when you think Olsen is distracted, sneak up behind her and do to her what you did to that log. Now tell me again where, is she?"

Lilith pointed and Jericho ran off to the middle of the empty plain kicking up ash and crunching glass underfoot. While Lilith ran around the edge of the perimeter wanting to get behind Olsen. 

Olsen was hurting in every sense of the word, the blast had picked her up and tossed her across the gardens, burning her flesh and burying her under rocks and trees. Now that she had dug her way out and was using all the remaining strength to keep up a paper-thin illusion to make her way over to Jericho and Lilith. She needed a new body and needed one now, this one wouldn't last long and would soon bleed out. Her drive to capture Lilith was doubled now, she still wasn't sure what her abilities were, but if that blast was any indication of what she could do, her body would prove to be quite powerful.

She was hoping to catch them by surprise but, somehow Jericho was coming right for her. How did he know where she was? He should still be looking at an empty plain, but somehow, he knew exactly where she was. He was alone, Lilith must be hiding, maybe that attack had worn her out and as Jericho came closer Olsen could see the blood covering his body. He also only had a thin white blade in his hand, no doubt that blast had done a number on him as well.  

"Perfect," Olsen thought to herself, all she needed to do was take care of him and Lilith would be easy pickings. Olsen dropped her Illusion and appeared in plain sight in front of Jericho.

"You look like a wounded pup" she mocked flailing her tentacles at him, he dodged but not as gracefully as he had done before, more like stumbling out of the way, the man was tired and on his last leg.

Without reacting he launched at her, slashing with the sword leaving a cut along one of her tentacles, but it was nothing, it was the equivalent of a paper cut to Olsen's massive body.

Olsen made to mock him, but Jericho was already pushing forward jumping up and grabbing on to her with a vice-like grip, his hands digging into her flesh, as he began to wildly stab into her. In a moment of panic, Olsen screamed as she flung him aside. But in an instant, he was on his feet and racing back at her. His eyes were blank and emotionless, but his movements were that of a wild animal, viciously and unrelentingly attacking. He would be closing to attack, evade, launch at her and madly hack away, Olsen would try to get some distance from him, but he would soon be on her again.

It was almost suicidal the way he was throwing himself repeatedly at her. She was beginning to panic; he wouldn't give her a moment to collect herself for an attack. Affecting him mentally was out of the question, she would need a few seconds to build up an attack but by then he would be on her hacking away at her.   

She was so preoccupied with the madman at her heels she didn't notice the person sneaking up behind her. Lilith was edging closer and closer behind Olsen, taking time to make sure not to step on any random plates of glass on the ground. She was terrified that the smallest noise would give her away. Her heart was pounding in her ears and the long walk seemed to both take forever and no time at all. Before she knew it, she was behind the lumbering tree of flesh as it swayed back and forth trying to keep Jericho away.

Lilith's hand on the pole trembled as she readied herself, she had never killed anyone before. But this person... this thing had tormented her, exposed her to worse pain than she had ever suffered, broken her perception of the world and flung her into this nightmare land. Worst of all she wants to take her body and lock her away in this ice-cold hell to die alone. Her hands steadied as the pole was engulfed in a thick black coat of smoke, ignited by her rage and hatred she stepped in to take her swing.

Olsen suddenly felt a sensation of a massive amount of energy moving into the bubble of her projected Psychic field. It had to be Lilith; Olsen didn't know what she was doing but couldn't take the chance that Lilith might be about to end her. Impulsively she threw herself backwards, hoping to use her body weight to crush the girl.

Lilith stumbled and fell backwards, as she saw the tree coming down on her, the feeling of defeat washed over her, she closed her eyes and waited for the end. 

"What are you doing... hurry up!"

Jericho was behind her, holding up enough of Olsen to keep most of her mass from crashing down on them both. He was glaring at her; he couldn't keep it up for long the bones supporting his arms and legs were snapping and cracking apart. Without a second more hesitation Lilith plunged the pole into Olsen's back. 

Olsen's weight helped the poll slide easily into her, from her perspective she felt a sharp pain, but it was but a pinprick for her, she would be able to lay there for a minute that should suffocate the two. With a little luck she should be able to recover Lilith's body, resuscitate her and claim her prize. In the end Olsen would be able to snatch victory from the jaws of...

Jericho and Lilith shouted in unison "PUSH!" 

In an instant, Olsen erupted into gore and viscera as she exploded from the inside severing her into two massive malformed shapes connected by a scattering of organs, blood and bones. The event had happened so quickly that Olsen didn't even realise she had died and in the centre of her remains left two, exhausted, broken and filthy people clutching each other thankful to be alive.

"No left, left!"

"Ok, ok sorry. You know this would be easier if you walked yourself"

"It would be easier if you used telekinesis to carry me."

I can't I'm... I get your point."

Jericho and Lilith managed to make their way out of the gardens, it was easy enough now with Olsen gone, but they still needed to find a door under all the debris and clear enough away to make it through. The whole effort had drained Jericho of the last of his strength, the exoskeleton that he used to move his body had broken away, now his arms were now just useless slabs of meat, moving his legs was about the only thing he could do. Standing upright was an impossibility, if he wasn't leaning on Lilith he'd be splayed out on the ground. With the effects of the Heart Cutter all but gone his vision was beginning to fade, sleep was threatening to take him with the only thing keeping his eyes open being determination and the fear that he might not open them again.

Lilith wasn't doing much better; the constant use of her new abilities had left her both physically and mentally drained. It left her with the feeling of an impossible exhaustion that felt like it would cripple her for the rest of her life and as the seconds wore on it only seemed to get worse and worse. 

"Is it always going to be like this when I use my powers?" 

"No, not normally, you just learnt to walk, and I forced you to run a mile. Sorry." 

"You don't need to apologise, without you we'd be dead back there, hell I'd probably be stuck inside that thing's body by now."

"I suppose... you should let go of your Release, the longer you use it the more it takes out of you."

"My what?"

Lilith looked down at Jericho in shock, he laughed in return.

"Your Release, you can't see it but right now your eyes are bright red, your eyesight probably seems better now, maybe you can see things you normally couldn't, and you can feel things outside of your body. It uses up a lot of your mental energy and will make you feel more drained."

Lilith couldn't believe that her eyes had changed colour, when her vision shifted, she had accepted it as a permanent change, as for that expanded sense of touch, she assumed it was adrenalin making her hypersensitive. If she could turn this off, she welcomed it. 

"How do I stop it?"

"Just let go, your body will snap back into place" Jericho said chuckling to himself, it was like he was talking to the children he grew up with again as they developed their own powers.

"But I'm not trying to keep this up." Lilith couldn't see how she was holding a power still, if she lost concentration the black smoke would whisk itself away in a flash, holding on to something for so long seemed impossible.

"You're probably holding onto it out of fear without realising it, that's normal, I've done it plenty of times. When you are scared having eyes as open as possible is a go-to response, we are out of danger for now, just close your eyes and take a deep breath."

They stopped moving while Lilith did as such. When she opened her eyes again the world seemed darker, the lines of light in the walls had gone, Jericho had lost his blue glow and the feeling of herself had shrunk down to just her body again. She also felt lighter, like she had dropped a set of weights, she didn't feel any less tired, but the drain on her spirit had lessened making her feel better.

"See back to green, feel better?"

"I do, how much further do we need to go? Feels like we have been walking for hours?"

"Not much further, it should just be around..." Jericho stopped and began to sniff the air.

"What? What do you smell?" Lilith did the same, but she couldn't pick up anything out of the ordinary.

"He's still there." Jericho sighed.

"What, who's there? Do we have to fight again?" Lilith began to panic, fighting in this state seemed impossible.

"No, he shouldn't be in any shape to fight, let alone move, I guess that's why he is still here. But I have to warn you, what you're about to see might be... nightmarish."

Nightmarish didn't even begin to describe the sight that greeted them. Golem was still in front of the escape pods, but instead of his normal hulking form, his body had morphed into a massive thriving mess of body parts and exposed organs. After Jericho had split the creature in two its ability to heal had tried to fix his body. Instead of letting one half die and reform the other or making two equal Golems. His body had continued to create new body parts to fill in the gaps between the two halves.

What was left was a mess of human anatomy as if a giant had scooped up a hand full of humans, crushed them into a writhing ball and jammed them into the hallway. The sight washed over Lilith like a torrent, she found she couldn't even make sense of what she was seeing, all she knew was that she suddenly felt sick to her stomach and began to heave but had nothing in her stomach to release. Jericho was equally horrified, but it was something he was expecting and quite frankly he was too exhausted to care, his only desire was to get into the escape pod and lay down on the ground.

"Jericho, what do we do?" Lilith asked with her voice trembling. 

"Just walk past him, he can't do anything.”

As they approached slowly Golem roared to life, he couldn't move around at all, he was completely stuck in place. The best he could do was randomly flail his forest of arms and legs around violently. The sight was even more unnerving as a sea of eyes and mouths snapped open in a sickening wave across the fleshy mass. 

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" A cacophony of voices rang out from Golem.

"Ignore him, just get in the pod." Jericho muttered with a hint of spite in his voice, he was reaching the end of his rope. 

Lilith was shaking in place and was about to dive through the door when Golem screamed again. 

"WHERE IS MOTHER? HER PRESENTS HAS GONE SHE HAS LEFT US! WHY WOULD SHE LEAVE ME! 

Lilith slowed as they passed through the doorway trying to not set off the creature again, but Jericho snapped and shouted at Golem.

"We killed her, your god was nothing!" 

Golem erupted into a whaling scream, that resolved into a pain-filled shouting "HOW COULD YOU! YOU CAME TO OUR PROMISED LAND AND YOU DESTROYED IT, YOU SNAKE, YOU FILTH, I WILL DEVOUR YOU!"

Jericho spat on the ground "I don't care, you can have your rotting tower, I hope it collapses on you." 

As the door to the escape pod slid closed Golem’s muffled screaming devolved into sobbing.  

"Was that necessary?" Lilith asked as she sat Jericho down in one of the pod-shaped chairs.

"Probably not, but he tried to make a deal with me to leave you here, wanted me to let Olsen have your body in exchange he'd let me leave." Jericho said now struggling to keep himself awake. There was nothing to stop it now, he would fall asleep soon. Trying not to, was like trying to push a boulder up a mountain with broken legs. It was physically painful to fight it, like needles were being fed into his eyes.

"Oh, I see, why did you come back for me?" Lilith asked standing at the control panels "How do I launch this thing?" 

"Just pressed the green button, the course was already set we just need to launch." Jericho said now so dreary he was losing focus.

"Right" Lilith hit the green button and machinery outside the pod came to life as the sound of another door shut behind them, it slammed closed silencing Golem's crying completely. A second later they felt the room fall and then suddenly accelerated as the escape pod decoupled from the Helix Towers and began to pull away.

Lilith settled into her own pod chair, facing Jericho who had his eyes closed "Well?"

Jericho stirred; he was just on the edge of sleep now. "What?" He murmured.

"Why did you come back for me?" She pressed, although she had her own eyes closed now, she would be asleep soon too.

"Oh... I couldn't leave you to that fate, you saved me before from drowning. Didn't sit right with me to not return the favour. Also... I promised Sam, I'd take you..." Jericho muttered. 

Lilith suddenly sat upright filled with a little energy again "What?! Was Dr Sam real? Where is he now? Why isn't he here? Did he already leave?" She was about to pull herself out of the pod chair but found she didn't have the strength.

"No, he... He wanted to stay; didn't think he'd be welcome outside." He was barely awake now, Jericho wanted to open his eyes, but he simply couldn't his consciousness was slipping away, and his thoughts were scattering.  

"Oh..." Lilith paused for a long time, her mind was trying to make sense of everything, suddenly she asked "Jericho, what is the outside like? Are there more things out there like what we saw today?" Lilith suddenly found she had so much to ask but she knew there was no time, both needed to sleep, and her eyes themselves were already sealed tight.

"Lilith." Jericho summoned the last of his strength.

"Yeah?" Lilith lazily acknowledged him.

"Once you wake up go through my bag, there should be things in there that will help you." 

"Help me with what?"

"I'm sorry, I'll have to burden you with this..." His mind finally slipped away, while he was terrified that he might never open his eyes again, he was relieved that it was worth it, Lilith was safe, and he felt that his mother and father would be proud of the effort. He had to admit to himself he was looking forward to finally being able to rest.

Sign 3

Sam was staring out over the frozen wasteland of Antarctica, from what was once an abandoned office space, blocks of rotting cubicles, empty open areas with printers and filing cabinets, with an area or two that would have been set up as break rooms at some stage. It was in one of these he now sat, it was the first that had a large window that hadn't been blown out looking over the landscape below.

He hadn't been above the ice line since he was forced into his new monstrous body, it was deathly cold up here, no doubt the heating system would have failed long ago. He wouldn't last much longer here but the thought didn't bother him, he didn't plan to leave. After Jericho and Lilith had left, he noticed his blackouts seemed to be quickening and lasting longer, perhaps he thought he was forcing himself to hold on for Lilith's sake. With her gone, he felt the pressure to hold it together lift from him like a weight had fallen from his soul.

This seemed like a fine end he thought, looking over the land, desolate yet hauntingly beautiful in a way, he would more than likely have a black out here and slowly drift away while he was out, a peaceful end he told himself.  

Sam felt it when Olsen died, for as long as he remembered it always felt like someone was hanging around him but always out of sight, like someone standing just outside the room he was in. He always just assumed it was anxiety or paranoia he developed as he was always on the lookout for one of Olsen's followers. But the second she died the sensation disappeared, he was relieved in a sense finally Olsen was gone, although it was little consolation at this point. It also meant he was trapped in this body now, although he lost hope of getting out long ago. The thought of taking someone else's body, forcing them to live in this kind of hell sickened him, so he resigned himself to this fate. No, it was better this way and Olsen got what she deserved, her lust for power and control had been justly punished. 

Although he couldn't be sure that Jericho and Lilith had both left, he received an alarm that the Garden had been severely damaged, and an evacuation notice was ordered. Which was then followed up with a successful escape pod launch, but beyond that he had no idea what had happened. He did choose to tell himself that Jericho and Lilith had somehow killed Olsen and escaped together, but that seemed like a fairy tale, but a comforting one. 

As he looked out over the silent white landscape below him, his one large protruding eye took in the last of the setting sun. In the darkening sky, Sam noticed a set of flashing lights flying across the sky. Before he could care to think about it, he felt his mind slipping again for the last time he hoped, however, this time before the darkness steeled in his vision was lit up by the brightest light he'd ever seen, followed by a feeling of warmth than... nothing.

Elsewhere looking at the fiery tree now growing out of the frozen grounds that was once The Helix Towers, Hilux smiled to herself raising a radio to her mouth to gleefully give her report. “Commander Hilux reporting, target neutralised, Helix Towers destroyed, all anomalies eradicated, Subject 24 presumed terminated, mission successful.”

A robotic-sounding voice on the other side of the radio replied, “Acknowledged Commander Hilux, return to base for debriefing.”   

Jericho slowly began to feel the sensation of warmth and a softness like he was wrapped up in a giant ball of wool. His mind was still hazy, he didn't know where he was or what he was doing before, he just felt warm... and comfortable, that was a change. He stretched out his body, and it responded well, no aches or pains... finally rested.  

Wait why would he be expecting aches? What was he doing last night? No wait the fight with Olsen, that’s right... then he lost consciousness... probably wasn't going to wake up again after that, the Doctor told him not to overdo it, but he went and pushed himself. "I can't fall asleep; Lilith will be left alone..." With that thought Jericho's eyes shot open has he snapped upright in bed, screaming "NO!"

In response the sound of a girl screaming rang out with a cacophony of noise accompanying her, Jericho's eyes were still readjusting to the light and what felt like days of disuse. He snapped his head around to the source of the sound, firing up his Release to force his eyes to focus.

"Lilith... Taz?" Instead of the ratty-looking redhead, dressed like some steampunk knock off, there was a small girl, with long black in a well-worn dress.

Jericho utterly confused, took in his surroundings, while he tried to reconcile his last memories with what he saw now. The last thing he remembered was Lilith placing him down in the chair on the escape pod, now he was in a simple room... no this was a hospital room and not just any hospital, this was one of the rooms in the Broken Hill hospital, how did he end up here?

"You're finally awake" cried Taz as she jumped off the ground wrapping herself around Jericho and crying into his chest.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm awake," he said rubbing her back he must have been out for a while to both make it back here, but to also worry Taz, how much time did he lose?

Suddenly the door to the room burst open, in walked a thin girl with bright red hair, gleaming green eyes and skin so pale it looked like she'd never seen a lick of sun and where those... hospital scrubs? Looks like Lilith found herself a new role already. Briskly she moved from the door to Jericho's bedside.

"Jericho, finally I was beginning to think the treatment didn't take, I was running out of ideas." 

"I... wait, you treated me?" Jericho looked up at her in confusion.

"Yes, but that can wait, first I need to." She leaned down and wrapped her arms around him. At least not the parts that weren't currently covered by a sobbing girl. 

"Thank you, thank you for saving me, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here today." She stood back up wiping tears from her eyes.

"Right, now I need to do an examination, Taz, I know you've missed Jericho, but could I have him for a second?" Taz nodded and pulled herself away from Jericho and shimmied off the bed. "Good girl, why don't you go and see what the boys are up to? I'm sure they will want to know Jericho is awake, oh and be sure to tell Doc and Lisa as well."

"Right" Taz responded and bolted off to who knows where. 

"Ok Jericho, why don't you tell me how you're feeling? Any side effects, any lingering drowsiness? Try and stand up for me if you can."  

Jericho climbed out of bed his legs felt shaky probably from lying in bed for however long, but his body felt good, in fact, he felt like a new man. It was like he had the best night's sleep of his life, he practically jumped out of bed. Lilith scoffed "alright no need to show off."

"I feel great, feels like I'm standing on a ship at sea, but I haven't felt this good in a long time," Jericho said cheerily.

"Legs probably feel like jelly because you've been in bed for a month. Now come..." 

"A month?" Jericho blurted out, he thought he'd have been asleep for a while, but he couldn't have been out of it for that long, could he?

"Yes, and we'll get to that, just come here will you." She pointed to the ground just in front of her.

Jericho walked closer to her "Why? Do you need to check my heartbeat or something..." in a fluid motion Lilith's right hand blasted black smoke up her arm as she plunged a fist into Jericho's stomach. He was lifted off his feet, flew through the air and tumbled over the bed.

"What was that for!" Jericho yelled as he clambered to his feet. This was the second time he'd been in this same hospital only to be assaulted right after recovering. He needed to find a better place next time.

He glared at Lilith, only to be met with the same anger-filled eyes before he could speak Lilith took control of the conversation. "What is wrong with you? Why didn't you tell me you were sick, I could have helped you, I could have..." her thoughts trailed off remembering their time at the Helix Towers, she had practised what she would say to Jericho when he woke up. But now that he was, she found it hard to blame him for not telling her, truthfully, she was mad at Jericho for another reason. 

"You left me. You pulled me out of a hole in the ground threw me into a new world and left me. When you wouldn't wake up, I was scared... alone." Her voice was beginning to shake remembering those first few moments when she realised Jericho wasn't waking up.  

"I know and... I'm sorry if I had time and if I could have explained it all to you, I would have... I just couldn't." Jericho's head fell he couldn't bring himself to look Lilith in the eye. He made a promise to Sam to take Lilith with him, but he dropped the ball at the last moment.

"No, it's not your fault" Lilith took in a deep breath as she fell into a chair next to Jericho's bed. Jericho had now clambered back into his bed rubbing his stomach, this was going to be bruised tomorrow.

"Besides I found your note and with a bit of luck I made my way here." She gestured to the room. 

"Oh, you did thank god, then, wait what did you do with the All Cure?" 

Lilith shot Jericho a sly smile "I used it."

Jericho's hand shot to his chest gripping at his shirt. "No not like that. Let me explain." Lilith chuckled.

"When I noticed you weren't waking up, I did panic and went digging through your bag like you told me. When I found the box and the instructions, I was tempted to use it on you.”

“But your note made me stop. 'Take this to the Doc in Broken Hill', I didn't know if that meant you didn't think this would work for you or if it was meant for someone else. I decided to not give it to you just yet and wait until I got to Broken Hill. The instructions on the box also didn't make me think it would work for you. It was by all rights an 'All Cure' but you weren't sick in that way. You were battered and bruised, and the injection could have healed that. But that wasn't what was keeping you asleep it was something else." 

"How could you tell?" Jericho asked.

"Even though I spent however long in that dream world, I spent all of it as a field medic, and that knowledge is still rattling around in here." Lilith tapped the side of her temple.

"When someone passes out or is unconscious, they still have some sign they are in there, you can activate reflexes or set off involuntary movements with the right stimulation. But in your case, you were quite literally dead to the world. I would have thought you were comatose, but you could still breathe on your own, it was like something was keeping you locked inside."

“That and I didn't want to give you the All Cure, based off not even the side effects, just the way it was described to work, made me think it would be more likely to kill you rather than help you."

Jericho was a little shocked that the thing he sort after for so long, all that work, and pain had been for nothing. Suddenly his heart began to race, if she hadn't used the All Cure on him, then was he still in danger? "Wait does that mean..." Fear was painted across his face, Lilith noticed and immediately calmed him.  

"No, no, you are alright, I found another treatment for you, let me finish my story. After we landed in Melbourne, I was a bit shocked, to say the least I've never been in such a big city before. Seeing it overflowing with Brutes and Psychics was quite overwhelming."

Lilith laughed to herself, "It did make me feel a lot less special, so many people with powers are in this world, compared to them I'm just a child. But I'll tell you more about that later, from there I did try to get you some help I took you to several Doctors. But only a few would give me the time of day and none of them knew what to do with you or what the All Cure even was. Most thought I was trying to scam them and kicked me to the curve."

"When I was beginning to think things were hopeless, these three strangers approached me and offered to help me, said something about their boss being a friend of yours, Ely I think they said his name was."

Jericho's eyes widened "Yeah I know Ely, we aren't friends exactly, I've only met him once, but he knows a lot about me... I don't know what his deal is, he's helped me in the past but never asked anything in return."

Lilith stopped and thought for a moment before she continued "Hmm, maybe he wants something from you now. The three said that Ely ordered them to do anything I ask as long as it would help me heal you. In return you had to listen to an offer they have, I think Ely is calling in your favours now."

"I guess... Wait you went with these guys?" Jericho said in shock.

Lilith looked away from Jericho as if ashamed "I did, I didn't have anywhere else to go, no money and I was dragging you around everywhere, it wasn't like you would last much longer without any food or water. These guys also seemed to know you; said they owed you. Besides I... Well, these guys were just humans. Not Brutes or Psychics just normal people, I didn't think they were much of a threat, if I needed, I thought I could... You know."

"Wow, one day in the real world and you're already thinking about killing those weaker than you" Jericho said in a flat tone.

"What! No that's not, I mean I Didn't want to... just that I could... not that I would" Lilith stammered as her face beginning to redden. 

 Jericho laughed "Relax, I was only joking. So how did these guys help you? Are they still here? Can I talk to them?"

"Yeah, they are still here, they've been waiting for you to wake up. As for how they helped I didn't have anywhere else to go, so I had them bring us here."

"I see, so wait you said you used the All Cure, but you didn't use it on me?"

"Right yes, once I got here and met Doc..." As if on cue the door to the room flung open, and a man in a dirty white lab coat burst into the room.

"Taz just told me, is he really awake!?" Doc yelled as he barrelled into the room. Lilith and Jericho sat there staring blankly at him like he was being ridiculous, not that he cared. In the clumsiest way a human could move he bounded over to Jericho, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him wildly.

"Jericho, thank you, thank you for, bringing me this woman, she's been a lifesaver!" Tears streaming down his face the man was happier than Jericho had ever seen him. Before he left Doc was a broken tired man, like he had been ground down by the world. But now he was overflowing with joy, although he didn't seem to care that Jericho was awake, it seemed he just wanted to thank him because of something Lilith had done.

"Yeah, no Doc, I'm doing great thanks," Jericho said annoyed.

"Great to hear it lad." Doc responded oblivious to Jericho's tone.   

"Lilith what did you do to this poor man? He seems far too happy." Jericho joked.

"Nothing, since I've been here, I've just been helping treat his patients." Lilith smiled back.

"Oh, I see, that describes the clothes then" Jericho looked over the green scrubs Lilith was wearing now that clashed with her hair
"Oh, that’s another thing!" black smoke began to shroud her body again "Why didn't you say anything? I was running around in that skintight get-up; I looked like a homeless dominatrix." 

Lilith standing all of a sudden caused Jericho to shimmy back in his bed morphing an arm into a black shield. "Ah no Lilith wait, I didn't put you in those clothes, and what was I going to say? By the time you were even able to comprehend your getup, we were a little busy with Olsen." Jericho stammered; he didn't want to get hit again.

The smoke around Lilith faded as she laughed "No, I know, I'm just messing with you." 

Jericho breathed a sigh of relief "Right, go on maybe you and Doc can tell me how you Healed me without the All Cure." 

"Oh that, Jericho it's amazing, Lilith is a natural at understanding medicine and the human body. I think that must be her Affinity." Doc explained excitedly.

"No kidding" Jericho looked back to Lilith. 

"Yeah, I didn't know what that was until Doc explained it to me, I have always found it easy to pick up information when it came to medicine. I always thought I just had a knack for it, but since I've been here, I have learnt so much so quickly it seemed impossible. It has been crazy, being in the real world has opened my eyes, learning that Psychics also have a knowledge Affinity as well as Powers, it seems too good to be true, I kind of feel unstoppable." Lilith said with a smile on her face.

Doc looked back to Jericho "Because of her work we found out that the parasite that Seon had put into your blood was actually a cluster of nanobots. We were able to treat you by hooking you up to a dialysis machine and exposing the blood to EM radiation to deactivate the bots. We couldn't get them all, so we had to wait for the last of them to deactivate, that's why you've been out of it for a month."

"I see" Jericho didn't get it, but he was now free from the last of the shackles that bound him to Seon. "So, what happened to the All Cure then?"

"Oh, that... Lilith would you like to explain, that, in my opinion, was your greatest achievement." 

Jericho glared at Doc, "She saved me." 

Doc laughed as he went to leave the room "Yeah, but you're only one person, anyway, I have patients to check up on, Jericho, it's good to have your back, I’ll tell Lisa you're up."

Lilith turned back to Jericho with a grin on her face, she was proud of whatever she did with the All Cure. "Right, the All Cure, so when I got here, I was tempted to give it to you, Doc didn't know what it was, so I assumed that it was for you to take. But I wanted to analyse it before I gave it to you, I wanted to be sure that I knew what it was and what it would do."

Lilith shifted a little in her chair, it looked like she feared how Jericho would act when he found out what she did. "I know you went through a lot to get it, but the thing is... well the thing is that the All Cure, is made from blood..."

Jericho's face fell, how could the All Cure just be a vile of Blood? "How, what?" Lilith continued, best to rip the band off. "It's not just blood, otherwise it would just rote in the vile. No, it was blood floating in a chemical preservative, and the blood had a special property it would move and alter itself, watching the blood vassals under a microscope, it was like they were, stretching and..."

Jericho whispered "Shifting?"

Lilith took a deep breath, "Yes, I even checked your blood with the All Cure, besides some off colouring from the other chemicals in the Cure, your blood and what is in the Vile are the same. If you had taken the cure, it wouldn't have done anything for you. But the bright side is thanks to my test with the All Cure and your blood I was able to find traces of the nanobots in your system. Once I found out that it was a mechanical component, I came up with a treatment plan for you."

Jericho was still reeling from the fact that he had almost thrown his life away over nothing, if he didn't meet Lilith, he'd be dead right now. But then something occurred to him "If you didn't, use the All Cure on me then who?" 

"The children," Lilith said with a smile. Now Jericho understood what Doc meant 'You're just one person.'

"No way, no wonder Doc is on cloud nine. But wait, was there enough All Cure to go around? There was only one dose." Lilith's eyes shot away from Jericho when he asked the question, she now seemed sheepish.

"Well, yes and no, the dose size that Seon recommended was far higher than any one person would need, and I was only using it as an immune system booster. So, I could stretch the dose out, it worked out better that way, the kids didn't experience the pain or the black outside effects." She was beating around the bush and seemed to be avoiding the main subject.

"Just say it!" Jericho snapped at her. 

"Well, you are right, there wasn't enough to go around... so I might have made more." Now Lilith looked away from Jericho completely. 

"Oh, you made more? Whose blood did you use for that?" Jericho spat the words out.

Lilith breathed heavily "Yours, you were still out of it, and we had already extracted the blood and treated it. I only needed a little to treat the kids. I know I should have asked for permission first, but I couldn't wait for you to wake up there wasn't time. I... I thought you would have said yes regardless." 

Lilith felt a hand rest on her shoulder she turned around to see Jericho beaming at her. "I'm joking Lilith, of course, I'd have given the kids as much of my blood as I could if it meant saving them. Thank you so much, can you take me to them?" 

Lilith felt the warmth from Jericho wash over her and she teared up a little, but she smiled wiping the corners of her eyes and said "Of course."

Together Jericho and Lilith returned to Lisa's makeshift Orphanage she had cobbled together under a crumbling overpass. The sounds of children yelling and screaming as they played in the yard filled the air. As they walked through the door the noise only intensified, with the sparks of an old woman's voice chirping over them "No stop, get down from there... Take that out of your mouth." There was a cheeriness to the atmosphere that Jericho hadn't felt before. 

Lilith yelled out over the ruckus "Lisa I'm back and guess who came with me!" Jericho didn't have time to respond a group of children had already found him and were pulling him every which way, some wanting to play and others wanting to show him something.

"Lilith! Is that you? How is Jericho doing..." Lisa came around the corner still wearing her well-worn brown dress patched together with all manner of different pieces of material. She hadn't heard what Lilith had said only that she had come home, the shock on her face when she saw Jericho standing in the doorway with children hanging from him made Lilith grin. 

"Jericho..."  

"Hey Lisa, I'm back..." Lisa had bolted across the room and wrapped Jericho in a hug, quicker than you would think for someone of her age. He almost toppled over with the children still crowding his legs.  

"You stupid boy, why did you have to scare me like that." She said with a trembling voice. "Come in and sit down, tell me everything."

After hours of talking to Lisa about everything that had happened to him; from when he left for Melbourne, to the Helix Towers, to the fight with Olsen. Lisa was enraptured, she also told him everything that happened to her and the children and how lucky they all were to have Lilith come to town.

"Oh, Lilith I almost forgot I finished those close for you. I hope you like them; this style was very popular when I was your age, I thought you might like them." Lisa pulled a bag out from a cupboard. "I was also able to clean up the boots you came here with. They were still in good nick, just needed some love and care."

"Oh, thank you Lisa, but you didn't need to do that, you should save your money for the kids." Lisa scoffed "Don't worry about that honey, I already had the material here, and I had to do something for you after all you did for the kids."

"Lilith I'm sure a style from a hundred years ago will look great on you." Jericho laughed.

Lisa shot Jericho a glare, what are you laughing about, you're older than me and you wear the same ratty jacket everywhere. Which I also fixed for you." She tossed Jericho's jacket at him. 

"Oh, no way" Jericho looked over the jacket, it had been ripped, shredded and burnt from their fight with Olsen but now looked brand new. He analysed it but couldn't see where the patches started or ended, Lisa might as well have remade it from scratch. "Lisa, this looks amazing thank you so much."

Lisa huffed, "Of course, Lilith go try yours on, so I can make sure it fits you properly." 

Lilith hesitated, this was a kind gesture from Lisa, but the woman didn't exactly have the best fashion sense, and her clothes looked like a hodgepodge of mismatched material. Although she did do a great job on Jericho's jacket, so maybe she did have a talent.

"Go on Lilith, I joke but Lisa is an excellent tailor." Jericho smiled, she agreed and left the room.   

"So, Jericho what do you plan to do now?" Lisa asked as soon as Lilith left the room.

Jericho looked at her the smile falling from his face as his eyes dropped to the floor, "I don't know, since I left, I haven't been thinking ahead. I was so focused on my goal of survival that I haven't given any thought to what I was going to do after I was cured." He thought for a second and looked back up at Lisa. "Maybe, I'll stay here and keep helping you with the kids."

Lisa sat back in her chair and took a deep breath "No, you can't stay here. You have so much power, you could achieve so much more than staying here and playing Den Mother with me."

Jericho looked conflicted, he really didn't know what he wanted to do next, staying here seemed like a given, at least for a little while. "Seem's a bit harsh don't you think?"

"I'm not trying to kick you out, but can you tell me that you want to stay here? Do you think that would fulfill you?" Lisa said like a mother giving their child a hard truth.  

"You are still young; you need to go out there and find something that makes you proud to give your life to it." 

Jericho laughed "I'm older than you, aren’t I?"

"You've spent more time on this earth than me yes, but you've barely seen the world. I can see it in you, you don't even really know who you are, and until you do you won't know what drives you." Lisa's words were a little harsh but there was a soothing truth to them.

With a warm smile, Lisa continued "Besides, this is an orphanage, you're not meant to stay here forever, it's just meant to get you ready to live the rest of your life."

Jericho chuckled to himself "You're not going to miss me?"

"You're not the first boy I've said goodbye to, but you are the most frustrating." They both chuckled. 

An excited scream broke the content silence between the two "Lisa! These are amazing I love them." Lilith came bounding back into the room in the clothes Lisa had made for her. She still had her knee-high boots from her time in the Helix Towers, however, they didn't look like rat-eaten scraps, they looked practically brand new.

The rest of her outfit seemed like a cross between something a tennis player would wear and a wasteland nomad. Lilith was adorned with a white pleaded skirt, covering black bike shorts coupled with a white shirt and a light grey scarf... or maybe a cape, covering the left half of her chest. The inside of the cape seemed to be bright red like it was meant to match her hair, Jericho had to admit while it was different from the norm, it did look good on her.

Lisa clapped her hands together "Oh I'm so glad you do, I added the shorts, if you're going to be fighting then they should save your modesty, and the cape will help protect your light skin from the sun"

This was starting to sound like Lilith was planning to go on a journey with Jericho. "I'm sorry. Are you going somewhere?"

Both Lilith and Lisa stopped chatting and looked dumbly at him "Well yeah, we're going back to Melbourne, aren’t we?" Lilith asked finally after a long pause.

Frowning Jericho responded "Who? You and me?"  

"Well yeah, us and Ely's guys, right? Oh, we still have to talk with them, let them know you're up and around." Lilith said as a matter of fact. 

Jericho stood up and stammered out, knowing at the same time that he was saying the wrong thing "No... I thought... you were staying here?"

Lilith frowned and snapped back "No... why would I stay?" 

Lisa laughed at them both.

Sign 4

Sitting in a clean well-kept office suite somewhere among the rows of other similarly designed pillars of metal, concrete and glass. Was a man happily chatting away on the phone. He was out of his normal street walker clothes, those dusty rags he used to blend into the underbelly of the city, clothes that while not at all his style were very handy in keeping an unwanted eye off of him.

Finally, he could relax in his more favoured silk shirt and jet-black suit. His iconic black mask sat in its usual place on his desk surrounded by neat stacks of papers covered in copious scribblings and notes. Lit by the glow of his monitor, getting a working computer was hard these days, but the extra effort and cost was well worth the efficiency it added to his work.  

He liked to glance at the mask from time to time, he paid a pretty sum to have it custom-made. After all, if he needed to cover his face that was scarred and misshapen, why not do it in style? His face, actually his whole body was deformed when his mutation advanced to level 2, it was severe enough that he would often be confused for a wild Gen X, so for ease of life he needed to keep his form under-wraps. The design was inspired by a doctor's mask from a commedia dell’arte play he enjoyed, a deep black mask with a large, pointed bird-like nose, covered in a detailed and intricate golden spiral pattern.

For him the mask was better than a business card, no one else would wear such a thing and those who knew who he was, would notice him in an instant. It was also his way of breathing a little bit of himself into the drab clothes he needed to wear when he was crawling around in the shadows.

Ely chuckled "And he didn't give you any grief, he just agreed to come? What about the girl? Did she come with him as well?"

The voice on the other side of the phone crackled something in agreement. It was hard to make out, the landline his subordinate was using must be decaying in a forgotten ditch. He listened intently to his caller's response as he looked over the filing cabinets stocked full of papers and notes, years of work he had put into filling them and finally, he could start putting them to use.  

His subordinate finished talking and was waiting for his boss's response. Ely took a moment to take in the breath of the work he now had in front of him. Looking over the knickknacks and trophies he had collected over the years hanging on his wall, these seemed to be pieces of junk to anyone else. But to him, they were reminders of battles won and lost, deals made, betrayals committed, some happy, some sad and most painful.

He smiled to himself, and told his subordinate "Excellent, well make sure he gets you back here in one piece."

There was a pause before the person on the other end replied with a simple, annoyed "Yes sir" before hanging up abruptly. Clearly, he didn't enjoy the joke.

Trent slammed the phone down on the receiver muttering to himself "asshole". He was already tired, exhausted from the day's walk and he was still feeling uneasy being around Jericho, not long ago all he knew about the man was that he was Seon's most wanted, now? Well, now he was more than likely going to be his colleague. Behind him Jericho and Joe were loudly joking and telling stories, why had they become such fast friends? While Eliza and Lilith chatted away happily.

He stepped out of the old pay phone that was practically falling over under its own weight and headed back to the group to join them.  

"I still can't believe it is you three. So, you left Seon?" Jericho laughed while slapping Joe on the back.

Joe flinched, but quickly relaxed "Yeah, well after being bested by Subject 24 instead of facing repercussions from our higher ups we decided to leave. We were already on thin ice with Seon, we... Probably would have been kicked out anyway."   

"I'm still confused how do you and Jericho know each other?" Lilith asked Eliza.  

Eliza ran her fingers through her orange hair which was beginning to bleach now that she was spending so much time outside. "We well... He used as bait to control a Vile, then when he didn't need us anymore, he tied us to a tree."

Lilith cocked her head in confusion, "Vile?" There was a lot about the outside world that had gone over Lilith's head, but since they left Broken Hill, Eliza had been more than happy to answer all questions Lilith had.

"They are mutated animals, they can be anything, some are harmless, some aren’t, and some are just so big they pose a danger by just walking around. The one we ran into was like a giant ant-scorpion thing." Eliza responded in a very matter-of-fact way like she was explaining what a cloud was. 

Lilith let the thought sink in for a moment "Oh ok... and Jericho tied you to a tree after he was done with you?" She eyed Jericho with a mixture of contentment and suspicion.

Jericho noticed this and quickly spoke to defend himself. "It wasn't like they were in danger the Vile ran off a cliff, and I gave them a knife to cut their way out, I just wanted to put some space between us before they were free."

Eliza responded with a flat "You gave the knife to Joe... He dropped it, it took us hours to loosen the ropes."

Jericho looked at Joe and then to Trent as he rejoined the group "I'll be sure to give Trent the knife next time."

Trent was a bit confused by the sudden comment and the chuckles from everyone but didn't pay it any mind. "I finished our progress report with Ely, we can get going now, hopefully, we can be back in Melbourne in the next 3 or 4 days."

Joe let out an exhausted moan "Really? Are you saying we are only halfway?"

"Maybe I can find us another Vile to ride." Jericho joked causing the three to shiver in unison.

"Don't joke about that." Eliza groaned.

Trent frowned and let slip a sentence he probably shouldn't have "What's wrong with you two, how can you be so buddy buddy with him?" 

Joe and Eliza looked away from Trent, they didn't want to make eye contact with him. "Oh? What's on your mind, Trent?" Jericho cut in.

Trent's voice caught in his throat, now he'd done it, but he powered on regardless "Look, Jericho, you're Subject 24, Seon's most wanted, you're a mutant and a Brute. Sorry, but it's a bit hard for me to suddenly trust you."

There was a long pause between everyone, which was broken when Lilith spoke up. "So? Trent you were Seon weren't you? From what Eliza told me you were a part of a group that tormented and brutalised Mutants, your group even destroyed Jericho's village and captured him.”

"They were also the group that both created me and kept me as a lab rat. We have just as much reason to not trust you, yet we do." 

Trent's head fell in shame, Lilith was right, why did he think his affiliation made him more trustworthy?

Then Jericho spoke up to change the subject "So, Ely finally gave up on that stupid name?"  

The question caught everyone off guard, but out of reflex, Trent answered "No, he had us call him Shadow Mask when we first started working for him. But when he sent us to contact you and Lilith, he told us to use the name Ely. Said you would be more trusting of the name. Shadow Mask is such a horrid name, we started using the name as well."

Jericho laughed, "I see, good to see I'm not the only one that thought the name was stupid." The mood in the group brightened as they packed up their things and continued the journey.

Eliza turned to Jericho, "Jericho, have you given any thought about Ely's offer?"

To say Jericho was shocked when he found out who the three people who helped him and Lilith get back to Broken Hill would be an understatement. For them to be the same Seon soldiers that he ran into when he travelled to Melbourne in the first place felt like fate was messing with him.

What was even more shocking was learning they had left Seon and started working for Ely a Psychic. It was so ludicrous that he was beginning to think it was a lie and that Trent, Eliza and Joe were acting, and this was a plot cooked up by Seon to try and capture him again.

But after some convincing and forcing Trent to contact Ely so that Jericho could talk to him, Jericho finally relaxed enough to listen to the three. What they had come all this way to offer on Ely's orders was a job, working for Ely. Jericho knew Ely was an information broker, but he didn't know much beyond that.

Trent, who seemed to be the one managing the group gave Jericho the full back story. Turns out until recently Ely had been working pretty much all by himself, for almost a decade he had been accruing information, resources, funds and contacts for something big. That something big was now ready to be set in motion and he needed to build a team.

That team was to consist of Seon defectors, powerful Brutes and Psychics as well as a smattering of trusted go-betweens to act as a communication network. They could be Brutes, Psychic or Unchanged humans with the only caveat being that they be able to act with discretion.

Trent and company were brought on as part of the Seon defector faction of the team and Jericho as well as Lilith were to join the powerful Brutes and Psychics faction. From the way Trent explained it Jericho and Lilith would be agents sent out on assignments being required to travel all over the country.

When Jericho asked what exactly Ely was hoping to accomplish Trent pulled out a small media player and played a recording which he referred to as 'The Invite', Jericho immediately recognised the voice of Ely. "Hello, you're listening to this because you have been identified as an invaluable asset for my team and I would like to extend an offer of invitation. But let me tell you what it is I plan for you."

"Surely you have noticed the state of our world, how it's a rotting corpse that is slowly being picked away by vultures. Each day that goes by things are a little bit harder, cost a bit more, you have a little less freedom. Over the past 200 years we have lost more and more, from the point of the great detonation, a time that should have brought us together to rebuild, we have done nothing but destroy."

“From Seon to Warlords, the Brute Sentinels and Psychic Arcana faction that take what they can and wipe out anyone that stand up against them. They grow fat off our efforts, taking what we produce and leaving us nothing but scraps to fight over.”

“I have a dream, a stupid, foolish and naive dream of pulling this world back together and healing it. To topple the power structures of this world and put the power back into the hands of the masses. Chances are that you also share this dream or a version of it, if so, I want you... No, I need you on our team.”

If you wish to join, come with the person who bears this invite, and we shall begin to resurrect the corpse of our world."  

After the audio file finished Jericho looked at Trent "I don't remember Ely being so, idealistic."

Trent smiled "No, you wouldn't guess it, most of the time he's obsessing over his appearance, keeping you at arm's length and flaunting his knowledge over you. But when it counts, he is working late into the night, obsessing over the human cost of every one of his movements and threating over every decision he makes. He isn't a lick like those I knew in command at Seon, he's a man whose plans I trust wholeheartedly."

From there Jericho asked Lilith if this was something she wanted to do, to Jericho this seemed like a natural move. Seon had taken so much from him and working towards their dismantling seemed like a natural move, but for Lilith? This seemed like a big ask, she just came into the real world and now he would be asking her to devote herself to a world she knew nothing about.

But to his surprise Lilith had already agreed to go with Trent and the team, she told him "Seon, created me yes, but they through me aside and left me to rot without me ever knowing what was what. If they have done anything like that to another person... I can't just turn away from that. I also... I need..." She huffed whatever she wanted to ask seemed to embarrass her, she instead muttered "Use your Release." She then asked him for a favour, something she didn't want the others to hear, she spoke so softly that if you were standing next to her you wouldn't be able to hear it. But thanks to Jericho's hearing amplified by his Release he could hear her loud and clear.

"Jericho, I need you to teach me how to fight, I'm so green to this world and without a way to defend myself, I won't last long. I won't be of any use to you, Ely or anyone so please... teach me." She wouldn't look at him.

Jericho simply replied "Ok" and she gave a stiff nod in return.  

From there they stayed in Broken Hill for a few more days, Jericho catching up with Lisa and Doc as well as playing with the kids at the orphanage. While Lilith left treatment plans for Doc, explored the town and asked Eliza countless questions about everything.

When the time came for them to leave it was... tearful to say the least all the children in the orphanage howled as Jericho said his goodbyes. Taz cried the most of all of them, clinging to his side not letting go until the very last second.  

Doc shook Lilith's hand as they were leaving, taking his time to release his grip, he'd probably have kept her there forever if he could, afraid to let his greatest resource go. But he did eventually with a smile and a genuine "Hope I see you again soon Doctor." Lilith made to correct him but thought about it for a second, she might as well be a doctor compared to this world's standards. She smiled and thanked him in return.

Lisa, well, despite how she and Jericho usually talk to each other, now seemed soft, almost motherly. She sobbed as she hugged him goodbye. Jericho did whisper to her, with a quiver to his voice "I thought you said I wasn't the first you've said goodbye to."   

She just squeezed him tighter, "I never said it was easy."   

Tears rolled down Jericho's face "No, it is not."

Now they were walking down dusty roads, through abandoned towns, in a dry landscape dotted sparsely with old gum trees that have seen many passers-by.  

Jericho looked back to Eliza "I think Ely could be a good fit, though I'm not too fond of having a boss all of a sudden. Does it pay well?"

In unison, the three responded with a flat annoyed "no."

Jericho sighed "Oh."

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