As soon as Alexandria left the room I deflated. I had to put on a strong face while dealing with her but now that I had a few moments to myself the weight of my failure in Vegas settled in.
I blocked out the cameras in the room with light, cast a spell so no one outside would hear me, and took off my mask, setting it down next to me.
I rested my face in my hands and I screamed to myself in a mixture of frustration and guilt. It was my fault! All of it! Because of me the Simurgh had escalated before we had even landed which means every single person who died or had to be quarantined was my responsibility. Their blood was on my hands. I'd killed them all, or worse.
I was supposed to be a goddess of fate, hope, knowledge, magic, and change and yet I'd doomed each and every last one of those people.
I was no goddess. I was just a stupid kid playing pretend! And my arrogance had cost who knew how many hundreds or thousands of people their lives.
You're wrong, you know…
"I'm not in the mood for this… Please, just shut up…" I muttered to Tzeentch, my voice hoarse and raw from my screaming.
No. You are wrong and as your teacher, and the other half of your very being, I must correct you. So you will hear me… You are a goddess, dear child, but you cannot yet fully withstand your own power. Tragically…
"If I can't use my power then I'm not a goddess. I'm just a human… A human who nearly went crazy when I tried to reach for more…" I unfurled my wings and spread them as far as I could in this room. "Like Icarus' wings melting when he flew too close to the sun." I let my wings go limp.
And that's my point. You are a goddess, it's only your mind that remains human. And what are we the God of, child?
"Knowledge…?" I said weakly, not caring enough to think about this too hard.
Yes, but knowledge is not the domain to which I was referring. Try again.
I sighed and let my hands fall away from my face, looking up at the roof. "Magic…? Change…?"
Change! Yes… We are the God of Change. As well as ambition… Would you like to know why you failed? You lacked the ambition to push yourself and change. You were content with growing slowly. Progressing at your own glacial pace because it was easy and comfortable… Certainly you have learned, but knowledge alone is not enough.
So tell me, dear girl, how much has your mind expanded from the day you first tried to change the weather three months ago? How many more minds can your mind process without excessive mental anguish? Two city blocks? Three? That is nothing. In your comfort and lack of ambition, you have allowed your potential to stagnate as if you were one of Nurgle's wretched spawn. It's pathetic. Unbefitting of us. Unbefitting of you…
There is an entire galaxy who you shall have to hear when you transcend your mortal limitations. And countless other worlds, like Earth Aleph and well beyond. You drowned in the psychic tides of a single human city. Whereas what I find maddening is the sheer silence of this universe, as if I stare into a void where life should be… At this pace, how many tens of thousands of years will it be before you're capable of withstanding the full breadth of our power?
I thought about Tzeentch's words.
He was right… If I'd had the ambition to try harder, to start pushing my limits when I'd first merged with Tzeentch three months ago, maybe I could have withstood the power I'd used during my fight with the Simurgh. Maybe I wouldn't have gone crazy. Maybe I could have done more and actually made a difference… Stagnation was anathema to my very nature, and yet I'd let it settle in. Like a rot eating away at me while I remained blissfully unaware. And because of that, I'd killed all of those people.
Stagnation… I was pretty sure I finally understood what that word truly meant. And I loathed it… I could finally understand why Tzeentch hated Nurgle so much. Rot was a form of change, it was just a slow change. Death and rebirth were just the change of state of life. And disease was utterly meaningless. No… The real issue with Nurgle was his stagnation and despair. Unchanging, without growth, and without progress. Utterly devoid of any sort of hope. That was the most disgusting thing about Nurgle, far beyond the rot, shit, and disease associated with him. And the more I thought about it, the more hatred began to grow within me for the god that didn't even exist here.
I had to tear the stagnation from my soul and let ambition take its place. Otherwise this would keep happening. More people would suffer and die because I made things worse or was too weak to stop it. I couldn't let myself settle into complacency any longer. I had to become the Goddess I was supposed to be, not the human I used to be.
I seized more power from Tzeentch, taking in as much as I could without losing my mind. I didn't use it, just held onto it. Even as the noise of the Warp tore at my thoughts like a storm of flensing razors.
The only way I was going to make progress was if I pushed my limits. So I would. I'd have to be careful not to go insane in the process, but I'd push as far and as hard as I could.
I could sense faint approval from Tzeentch.
I spent a minute trying to figure out the maximum amount of power I could hold at once while still being able to talk properly.
Once I did, I started working on trying to get rid of the extra appendages Tzeentch had given me.
I started with the arms and—
My extra left arm vanished only for a third right arm to appear out of nowhere.
I blinked and looked at it. Wondering how the hell that just happened.
I tried again, only for both of the extra arms to switch sides again.
I tried again and this time I managed to get rid of one but that still left me with an extra third arm. I tried to get rid of that one and both of them reappeared again, back on my right side.
"Tzeentch, what the hell is this?!" I growled in annoyance.
Why, whatever do you mean?
"Don't play dumb with me you jerk! How the hell do I get rid of these mutations?!"
Hm… I wonder…
"This isn't a joke. I can't go home with four fucking arms and a pair of wings! Especially when the arms are asymmetrical like this!"
He didn't respond. I could tell he was enjoying this.
"You…" I grit my teeth and stopped myself from cursing him out.
Taking a deep breath I kept trying and failing to get rid of the arms and wings.
After a few minutes I gave up and just tried to get all of them back in the right places to be symmetrical again. Eventually I managed to accomplish that much at least, but that just left me back at square one having accomplished nothing.
I slumped in defeat.
"At least tell me how I can hide them."
Hm… Very well.
Tzeentch spent the next few minutes teaching me a spell to make the wings and arms invisible and intangible, and to temporarily warp my costume back to normal while they were hidden.
When I was done hiding my mutations, I picked up my mask and saw the lines from where my talons had torn through it and I had crudely welded it back together. So I took a few moments to fix that too.
When I was finally done, I put the mask back on, got up, and left the hospital room. Glory Girl was waiting for me outside.
She waved at me. "Hey, Circe. You're looking better…"
"Yeah. Only looking better. I messed something up so I still have the extra limbs. I can't get rid of them for some reason. So I'm just hiding them right now… Anyway, sorry you had to drag me out of there like that."
She waved a hand dismissively. "Hey, it's no big deal. But, uh… That whole thing is sort of what I wanted to talk to you about. Not just the wings and stuff but… You know, maybe it's better if we talk about this somewhere else. You said you're just hiding them so, can you still fly?"
I nodded. "I'll have to reveal them to fly, but sure."
"Great, then follow me." She said, turning and leading me out of the medical wing of the PHQ.
The two of us flew over the Bay. I noted that the sun was setting. I was going to have to go home soon…
We landed on a nearby rooftop and I hid my wings again.
"So… What's this about?" I asked.
Glory Girl crossed her arm. "I saw the whole thing. You changing yourself, clawing at your own face to the point you shredded your own mask, everything."
I froze. She saw that? How did she see that? Tzeentch had cast a spell to stop anyone from seeing me when I was breaking down. Unless he wanted her to see for some reason? That had to be it. Was it so she knew I was in a bad state so she'd pull me out, or was it something else?
"What the hell happened back there, Circe?"
I sighed. "Damn… Sorry you had to see that… Look, can you keep a secret?"
Glory Girl shrugged. "Depends on the secret."
"It's about my powers. And no it won't hurt anyone else or anything like that. It's purely a me problem. I just don't want anyone else knowing about it because it comes with a certain stigma." I told her.
She thought for a moment before nodding. "Alright, fair enough. What is it?"
"I'm telepathic."
I raised my mask just enough that she could see my mouth while keeping the upper half of my face obscured. Then mentally I told her, 'See what I mean? Notice how my mouth isn't moving?'
She took a half step back. "Oh… Oh that's creepy. Ah! Uh… No offense! It's cool too, just… You know…"
I smiled at her and reaffixed my mask. "None taken. I know what you mean… I try to avoid reading people's minds without permission but… Well… Did you notice how I suddenly seemed to get a lot stronger out of nowhere? From shooting a few beams to fighting the Simurgh directly? And that final spell at the end?"
Glory Girl nodded slowly. "Yeah… I guess…"
"Well, my powers don't have a hard limit. Not really. But there is technically a limit… When I draw more power, my telepathy gets stronger too. I start hearing the surface thoughts and feeling the emotions of everyone around me. And the more power I take in the harder it is on me physically. It could legitimately kill me if I'm not careful. Thus why I was having a seizure, bleeding from my eyes, and coughing up blood… So when we were fighting the Simurgh, I saw how things kept getting worse and I got desperate… So I did something stupid."
Realization seemed to start dawning on Glory Girl. "You used more power than you could handle… Then when your body couldn't take it you changed your body so you could handle more power physically but not mentally."
I nodded. "Pretty much. Yeah… Just a few city blocks worth of voices is really hard to deal with. I'm holding as much power as I can right now, hoping I'll start to get used to it so I can handle more. And it's god awful. I'm actually having to hold a bit less power right now so I can focus on this conversation properly since this is kind of important… Before, the maximum I could hold physically meant I would have died before it could start driving me completely insane… After the changes… I pulled in so much power I heard the minds of everyone in the entirety of Los Vegas. Hundreds of thousands of people, in a city under attack by an Endbringer. Thinking, praying, screaming, dying. All of their thoughts. All of their emotions. Everything. I was drowning. It was so bad I didn't even register the fact I was clawing at my face."
"How'd you snap out of it? I mean… If you were that out of it, I don't get how you managed to register the fact the Simurgh was even there." Glory Girl asked.
I looked off to the side. I could faintly see a ghost… I knew it was mom…
"I saw someone… My dead mother. Her ghost I guess. Maybe it was just me going crazy and seeing things that weren't really there. I mean, I was being blasted by the thoughts of an entire city. Would you be surprised if I started hallucinating in that situation?" I chuckled mirthlessly and shook my head. "Anyway, seeing her, real or not, it helped me. Helped keep me somewhat grounded. Focused. Just barely lucid enough to keep fighting… Did you notice me holding nothing with one of my extra arms? That was because I thought I was holding onto her…"
I walked over to the edge of the roof and looked out at the bay. "I can show you what I saw from my perspective, or I can use my telepathy to let you experience some of what I do when I start using too much power. If you want to see it or experience it. Obviously I wouldn't let you experience everything I did, I don't want to drive you crazy. But what I'm hearing right now should be safe. And I don't have to let you experience everything I did just to show you what I saw, visually."
Glory Girl walked over and stood next to me, looking out at the bay. She was silent for a moment as she thought about it. Eventually she sighed. "I'll take you at your word for the thing with your mom. But… I guess I am a little curious about what it's like hearing all that."
"Is that a yes, then?" I asked, looking at her.
She shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
"There's plenty of reasons why not. But if you're up for it, you should brace yourself. It's not going to be a fun experience." I put my hand on the back of her head and after giving her a second to get ready, I connected to her mind and let her hear some of what I was. Just enough for her to get it, without actually hurting her at all.
She nearly fell off the roof as she was caught off guard and her legs gave out, but I caught her with my telekinesis before she could. "Agh! What the fuck?! I get it! I get it! Stop!"
I pulled back from her mind.
She took a minute to collect herself, breathing heavily. When she'd gathered herself, she looked at me. "That's what you have to deal with?! Fuck! That's almost worse than the Simurgh's scream!"
"That's actually one of the good things about my powers. I was able to block out the Simurgh's scream. So I only heard it for a moment when I first entered her range. After that I only had to deal with my own powers." I told her.
"And you were going through worse than that?!" Glory Girl asked.
I nodded. "Significantly worse. Yeah. So you can understand why I was going insane. Especially in the middle of an Endbringer attack."
"How the hell are you not still insane?"
I shrugged. "Magic."
Glory Girl groaned and rubbed the sides of her head. "Ugh… Damn… Now I think I've got a migraine."
I cast a spell and fixed her migraine. "Not anymore."
"Thanks… So… How does an extra set of arms and a pair of wings help you use more power? Is it just a thing of needing more body mass or…?"
"No, and it doesn't. That was something I did by accident while I was going crazy while changing myself. In fact I messed up bad enough, I can't get rid of them…" I sighed and revealed my extra arms, and looked at one of my new hands. "I'll figure it out eventually. Until then, I'll just have to hide them… On the bright side, I can fly now I guess. And I have an extra set of hands to use whenever my normal hands are full."
I hid my arms and wings again then looked at her. "Anyway, since we're talking anyway, I suppose there's something I'd like to offer. I have postcognition and unlike my telepathy I can't turn it off so, sorry about that. But I know your dad has depression and lingering effects from a concussion when he was a teenager. And I know your mom has PTSD from her trigger event. I can heal the two of them."
Glory Girl looked at me in surprise. "You can?"
I nodded. "I can. I'd have offered when we first met but I didn't want anyone being distracted by the fact I knew their pasts before going into an Endbringer fight. It seemed… unwise… So?"
"Yes! If you can help them that'd be great! Well, if you can help my dad at least. I'm not sure Mom would go for it… But still! Come on, let's go!" Glory Girl ascended into the air and motioned for me to follow her.
I revealed my wings and took off after her.
She led me back to her house. It was fairly large but I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. Her mom was a lawyer and New Wave was well off.
I hid my wings again as soon as we landed. "I'll wait out here for right now, while you let them know I'm here. I don't want to intrude." I told her.
"Oh. Alright, I guess. I'll be back in a second!" Glory Girl said, before rushing inside.
I waited a bit and she came back out with her parents and Panacea.
Flash Bang waved at me in greeting. "Hey, Circe. Good to see you're okay… Vicky says you have something important to tell us?"
"Hey. Well, I kind of owe Glory Girl for saving my butt by dragging me out of there during the Simurgh fight. So… I'm sorry if this is a bit sudden since we've only just met but I am a powerful post-cog and, unfortunately, I can't turn it off. So, Flash Bang, I apologize for the intrusion but I know you have depression and lingering issues from a concussion you had as a teen. I can fix both for you if you want."
Brandish, Flashbang, and Panacea all seemed surprised to hear that.
"You can?" He asked.
I nodded. "Just yesterday I was undergoing power testing on the PHQ and they had me heal a man with terminal brain cancer. He also had undiagnosed depression which I fixed too. So, if you want me to do the same for you, I can. I'd have offered when we first met but I didn't want anyone being distracted by the fact I knew their pasts before going into an Endbringer fight… Anyway Armsmaster was overseeing my power testing so you can confirm with him first, if you'd prefer."
He shook his head. "No, it's fine. I doubt you'd be lying about this. So if you can fix my head, please do."
"Hold on. At least let Panacea observe. We don't know Circe. I just want to make sure she won't do anything to you other than heal you." Brandish stated.
I shrugged. "Fine by me. Panacea?" I looked at her.
"I'll… Okay…" She muttered.
Flash Bang took off a glove and held out his hand to Panacea. She took it. He then looked at me. "Do you need to touch me to heal me too, or…?"
"It can make it easier but it's not necessary for me. Just hold still." I stated, raising my hand.
His head was enveloped in blue energy.
Closing my eyes I focused and began fixing his brain.
When I was done, I lowered my hand and opened my eyes. "Feel better?"
His posture changed and he raised a hand to his head. "Yeah… Wow, that's way better."
Panacea released his hand and took a step back. Her eyes wide and fixed on me.
"Of course! Glad to help. Brandish, PTSD is both neurological and psychological. If you wanted, I could fix the neurological half of it but I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for the mental half." I lied. Fortunately Glory Girl didn't call me out on it. I took that as a good sign she was going to keep that secret.
"I'll pass… Though I appreciate the offer." Brandish said warily.
I nodded. "I understand. It's your choice… Panacea, thanks for healing me after I knocked myself out. Unfortunately I was under a lot of pressure and made a mistake with my powers. I'm keeping them hidden but I still have my mutations. The wings and extra arms. If you're willing to help me out, I'd like to talk to you in private and see if you can help me get rid of them?"
Panacea looked like a deer caught in the headlights for a moment before nodding. "Uh… Sure… We can talk in my room."
"If you're uncomfortable or even just don't want to, it's fine. I don't mean to ambush you after doing all this. I think I can fix it on my own eventually but your powers work a bit differently from mine so I thought it might be a bit faster if you did it." I told her.
She shook her head. "No, it's fine. I'm actually pretty curious about how your powers work and I have some things I want to talk to you about too. Come on in." She turned and started walking back inside.
I followed after her.
She brought me back to her bedroom.
Closing the door behind us I cast a spell so no one could listen in and said, "Alright, what I said earlier was a lie. You won't be able to fix my mutations either, I just needed to talk to you in private. I'm manipulating the sound in this room so no one can hear us right now even if they're trying to listen in. So you don't have to worry… But, I can fix your brain too. Change it so you aren't attracted to your sister."
Panacea's legs gave out and she ended up sitting on her bed. Her face had gone pale.
I raised a hand placatingly. "Don't worry, I'm not going to tell anyone. I know how to keep a secret. I'll treat this the same as me knowing another Parahuman's civilian I.D. That said, I can see your past so I know this is causing you some trouble in your daily life. That doesn't have to be the case. I can make you just see her as your sister and nothing else. You don't have to decide now. You can think about it and tell me some other time. Like if we run into each other while I'm volunteering at the hospital or something."
"I… I, uh…" Amy swallowed hard and looked away from me. "You… You don't think I'm weird… right?"
"It's not my place to judge. I'm just making the offer since I know its been causing you issues."
Amy was silent for a moment as she thought about it.
After a bit she sighed. "I… I guess… If you can fix me, fix my brain, then please…"
"Is that a 'yes' then?" I asked her.
She nodded, still not looking at me. Even without reading her mind I could tell she was embarrassed and terrified that I was going to tell someone.
"Alright then." I walked over to her and put my hand on her head as I began rewiring her neurons to make her lose all attraction to Victoria and see her only as her sister.
When I was done I pulled my hand away. "And there you go. You'll no longer be attracted to Victoria. And it's permanent. You have zero chance of relapse. And you don't have to worry, I'm never going to tell a soul. This is between you and me and that's it. So now we both pretend like this never happened. I'm going to drop the spell I've been using to prevent anyone from eavesdropping now."
I dropped the spell. "Ah, damn it… I guess you can't do anything about these stupid wings either, huh? Well thanks for trying, at least."
"Uh… You're welcome…?" Amy said awkwardly.
"I appreciate the attempt. Oh well, guess I'll have to try and figure this out on my own… You said there was something you wanted to ask me about my own powers?" I asked.
"Oh, right… Uh… I'm sorry I lost my train of thought… I kind of forgot." She muttered.
"That's alright. If you remember, feel free to ask. We'll probably be seeing each other around the hospital every so often so there should be plenty of opportunity. Well, if that's all. I guess I should get going. See you later, Amy."
I turned and opened the door.
"L-later!" She called after me.
As I was heading to the front door Flashbang called out to me, "Hey, you're going already, Circe? You don't want to stay over for dinner or anything?"
I looked at him and shook my head. "I don't want to overstay my welcome. I just stopped by to help you, as a thank you. Besides, it's getting late. I gotta get home soon."
"Alright then. Have a good night, Circe."
"You too."
I left the house and opened a portal back to my base.
Heading through I began taking my costume off and putting my equipment away. Then I went home, more than ready for a break after the day I'd had. Or as much of a break as I could get, while pushing my mind as far as it could go...
Trying to get to sleep tonight was going to be a nightmare.
Not quite how I expected this chapter to go. But I think it works well enough.
As always I'm open to any and all criticism!