129. Unwanted Responsibility (Patreon)

The relative quiet of the early morning leaves me even more capable than usual of listening to the terrified pounding of my heart, contrasted by the freakish calmness of Vesuvius the Inhuman's twelve.

"I have had a very awful couple of days," I whisper. "So please, please tell me I didn't just hear you declare an intent to commit treason."

She makes a slight, derisive snort. Holy shit, she can even scoff at me subvocally. That's some A-game noble smugness, I'll give her that. Damnit, why is this shit all happening to me? A day with my family was nice and all, but I'm still just fucking exhausted.

"I prefer to think of it as an intent to defend the girl I love from an unjust authority," Lady Vesuvius answers smoothly. "It sounds far more laudable an objective when you say it like that, doesn't it? Though I do want to say, before we get any further into this: I'm willing to protect her with violence. I absolutely don't want to."

My eyebrows raise very slightly. The girl she loves? So she and Vita… okay. Okay, that makes sense. I can work with that. At least once I figure out what the fuck I should be doing about any of this. Watcher's eyes, this is too much for me. This is way too much all happening all at once, and I'm not qualified to deal with any of it!

But I have to. So you'd better focus, Jelisaveta. Lives are on the line, and being a fuckup doesn't mean you get to stop trying.

"What do you want, then?" I ask quietly.

"Hmm, I wonder," she answers coyly, studying me very closely. "I'll answer, but you should go first."

I swallow and nod. Not like I'm in a position to say no.

"I want everyone to have a happy ending," I say firmly.

Lady Vesuvius laughs.

"That's funny," she smirks. "I want everyone to not have an ending at all."

Ah. Okay. The pieces are starting to fall into place.

"You're helping Vita figure out how to bring dead souls back to life," I conclude.

"I am indeed," she agrees, seeming pleased I figured that out. "Vita cares mainly because of her dead friends and family, but she has also embraced my wish that no one should have to die. I am a biomancer at my core, after all. I heal. And I can think of no greater goal than curing the greatest affliction of mankind's history: death itself."

"That's… ambitious," I respond slowly.

"I'd be offended if I was called anything less," Lady Vesuvius preens.

"You'd be denying people the afterlife," I point out.

"I doubt that," she shrugs. "Even if such a thing exists, immortality is not the same as immunity to death. Besides, people could always opt out."

"We'd pretty rapidly run out of space and food, wouldn't we?" I challenge.

"If we sit on our asses and do nothing? Yes, I suppose. But even ignoring the countless ways we could deal with that problem, it still seems like a fucking awful reason to continue letting several hundred people die literally every day."

Okay. Okay. She's arrogant, prideful, absolutely swimming in hubris, but I think she's being honest. She's an idealist and she's trying to do the right thing. So is her threat the result of believing so firmly in those ideals that she'd go to any lengths to achieve them? Is it the result of the fear of losing someone she loves? Or is it because she's emotionally stunted in all the ways I'm picking up vague vibes on, despite her terrifying control over her expression?

Does it actually matter?

"I'm not sure I agree with you on that," I say slowly, "but in the end I certainly have no desire to stop you from researching immortality, if that's what you want to do. What I need to know is why you're telling me all this. You hinted at this on purpose, right? You sought me out in order to have this conversation. Why?"

"Because you have stumbled into a position where you can help," Penelope answers, looking at me seriously. "I care about Skyhope, Inquisitor. I care deeply about all of Valka. Wanting the best possible life for my people is part of who I am. And somehow, you know I'm telling the truth about that, don't you?"

I nod, slowly, as my mind races a mile a minute.

"My talent is… extreme," Lady Vesuvius continues. "I can kill zero people, one person, or everyone. If you intend to back me into a corner where I'll almost certainly be killed, my options become keeling over to die or lashing out, and I'm afraid I'm not a good enough person to be a martyr. For most people, you'd consider that fairly understandable, wouldn't you?"

For most people. By her own wording, she's acknowledging that her situation is drastically different. Yet should I call her out on that…? No. It wouldn't help. What helps here? What are my goals?

I suppose on a fundamental level I have only two options. I can go along with whatever it is Vesuvius the Inhuman wants from me, keep her secrets, and betray my duty. Or I can pretend to do that, covertly attempting to find a way to betray Vesuvius without letting the consequences spill out and get people killed.

You know, like you did with Vita, I think to myself. You sure did a great fucking job keeping everyone alive there.

"You have my hands tied, metaphorically speaking," I tell her. "Just make your case."

"Alright, if that's what you want," Lady Vesuvius agrees, nodding. "Here's what I need from you: keep my secrets, and keep Vita alive. The church wants her destroyed, but she is an asset to Skyhope. Not only in regards to immortality, but in regards to her unprecedented ability to clear out the forest. She could single-handedly eliminate the need for hunters, Jelisaveta! She's willing to, if we just fucking let her! Yet even more than that, more than anything, we need her because she's our best hope of stopping Ars."

Okay, that one I'm not letting slide.

"With all due respect, my lady, Ars wouldn't be a problem at all if you hadn't staged a prison break."

To my surprise, she nods in agreement.

"I'll cop that," she admits. "The immediate situation is on me. I could claim that the very security intended to keep him secret is at fault—I had no idea he was even there, and if I did I would have made contingencies for that. But to me that seems like a less compelling counterpoint than simply pointing out that, yes, he absolutely would have."

"And how do you figure that?" I grumble.

"Your people had Ars this entire time, and their best idea for keeping him out of the public was to just hope he didn't die? Last I checked, I still haven't invented immortality yet, so exactly how much longer do you think that was going to last?"

"I'm… not privy to that kind of information," I answer noncommittally.

"Oh come on, Inquisitor. Don't ruin my opinion of your intelligence now. We need her alive because the Inquisition is refusing to research the animancy necessary to actually do their jobs. If they had a way to stop the man they would have damn well used it in the last decade and a half."

Shit. I can't really refute that. Even if we recapture him, do we have a long-term plan? Plus, with Vita's absurd sensory range, she's our best bet at finding him. He might even seek her out, and if that happens we need to be absolutely fucking sure she doesn't join him. As things stand, she might do that even if he doesn't mindfuck her. That would be… I don't know. Apocalyptic, probably.

"I… even if Vita can stop Ars, which is a big maybe, she's sort of… dangerously immature and mentally unstable. She'd be a hard sell to my superiors without the blasphemy, Lady Vesuvius."

"Well, whose fucking fault is that?" the young woman snaps. "For shit's sake, you imprisoned and tortured her for longer than she's had a family. What did you think was going to happen?"

"I was trying to—"

"I know you were," Penelope cuts me off. "She knows you were. But you need to open your eyes, Inquisitor. The leaders of your organization are up to so much shit they wouldn't notice if we routed the sewers into their homes. You might be good, your co-workers might be good, but the people you work for are corrupt, power-hungry hypocrites."

And she expects me to believe she's better? Please. The woman who just threatened to kill a city isn't going to fool me with a mudslinging campaign. I can't just say that, though, because it's a threat she's legitimately capable of making good on. First Lady Penelope Vesuvius is a walking natural disaster the likes of which I'm not sure even the High Templars could stop. Sure, they could kill her, but… would that save us, or just damn us all? She has me and she knows it.

What I can't figure out, though, is why I'm even alive. Yeah, she has me, but why does she need me? Why not just have me assassinated or captured or something? I guess that would be pretty conspicuous, but I doubt she has no way to anonymously murder someone. She can't have qualms about that. Is it just because Vita wanted me alive? That sounds fucking ridiculous. I'm not that important.

"Inquisitor," Penelope says slowly, "do you think the world would be better off with Vita and I dead?"

The question takes me by surprise, and I frown. What kind of question is that?

"You can't be judged before you even live your life," I answer. "Not even the Watcher can see the future."

"That's a deflection," she points out.

"No, it's my honest opinion," I disagree. "How am I supposed to know if you're going to help the world or ruin it? I don't know, my lady. I want to default to believing you want the best for us, but you made that pretty damn difficult when you opened this conversation by threatening thousands of lives."

Penelope sighs.

"Ah, my flair for the dramatic is finally coming back to bite me," she muses. "Apologies. I just feel the need to go all-in when betting the life of my love. But I, like you, believe everything works best when we can all compromise and get along. All I'm asking you for is assistance in preventing the worst from coming to pass."

"I know," I say. "And I'd have loved to help if you weren't coercing me and forcing me to lie like a traitor in order to do that. The entire situation might be out of my hands anyway, Lady Vesuvius. I have no idea when or why they might put me back into decontamination, and then…"

I gesture helplessly.

"Inquisitors are not good secret-keepers," I finish.

"I will find a way to solve that problem," Lady Vesuvius promises. "If you think it's going to happen, you come to me first."

"Fine," I agree, not really seeing any other option.

"We'll take care of Melissa," she says suddenly.

Startled, I turn towards her.

"I mean that," she continues. "That's not a threat, it's unconditional. Vita and I will ensure she heals and lives a good life."

I glower slightly. Unless the two of them aren't around to help, is that it? No, no. Ugh. I'm exhausted and just being a bitch at this point. That's an olive branch, Jelisaveta. Take it.

"Thank you," I say. "She deserves more than what she got."

Lady Vesuvius grins wide, baring her teeth.

"She does, doesn't she?" the woman agrees, holding out her hand. "May this be the lowest point of our partnership, Jelisaveta. I know I can be a bit extreme, but I assure you we want the same things."

I stare at the hand like it killed my mother. I hate handshakes. People have no idea how gross handshakes are, and I'm in civvies so I don't even get a layer of armored chitin between me and the other person. I don't even have gloves. Still, my social instincts win out and I reach forward to grab her hand, give it a firm shake, and immediately panic as something pierces my magic resistance.

I try to jerk my hand away and fail, my body momentarily frozen. She looks me in the eye and continues smiling as the shake continues for an awkwardly long amount of time before she finally lets go, and my body is my own again. I want to step back, I want to run the fuck away, but I can't risk acting strange, I can't give away that she might have done anything or she might escalate! There's no one else on the street, but there are at least twenty-eight people nearby that are up and awake, and they might investigate a commotion.

"What did you do to me?" I whisper.

"What does it feel like I did to you?" she counters.

Holy shit, what a terrifying fucking question. Am I a walking plague bomb now? I feel… huh.

"I'm not tired anymore," I realize.

She winks.

"Just a little biomantic pick-me-up. Honestly, I doubt I could get out of bed without that spell, it's so useful."

"I'd say thank you, except I didn't ask for this and I have no way to know if it's the only thing you did to me."

"Well, if I did put a remotely-activatable trap inside your body—purely hypothetically, of course—all you would need to do is follow the terms of our little agreement and I'd have no reason to use it, now would I?"

I swallow, nodding slowly. I of course don't remember agreeing to anything, but that's somewhat of a pointless piece of pedantry to mention now.

"I should get to the Church," I say, loud enough to be heard for the first time since being threatened. "I have an appointment to make, I'm afraid."

"Ah, of course," Penelope responds, all formality and smiles. "This is where we part ways, then. Thank you again for the company, Inquisitor."

"Any time," I lie, and start walking away.

She does the same, heading the opposite direction. I still hear her whisper after me as I leave, though.

"Remember, Inquisitor," she intones. "Hypocrisy."

I grit my teeth and decline to answer, trudging the rest of the way to the nearby church with the weight of the conversation pressing down on me. Our new grand cathedral is nowhere near as beautiful as the one in the center city used to be, but it's still a lovingly-wrought tower of stonework that I'm sure would look a lot more beautiful to someone that couldn't see the hundreds of jagged imperfections. The inside is a thousand times worse, though, because the church tends to regularly burn scented candles in order to 'freshen up the place.' Watcher, my nose just wants to murder me.

At least I don't have to wait long before I'm escorted to meet what I assume will be my new boss now that Captain Manus is, uh… compromised. And also dead. I don't expect to be ushered into a room with two High Templars, a Templar General, and two older men not in Templar uniforms at all. Though I guess considering how today has been going so far, I probably should have. I snap to attention.

"Inquisitor Jelisaveta reporting!" I announce.

What the hell are all these super high-ranking people doing overseeing my assignment meeting, of all things? What am I going to be sent on now? I recognize one of the High Templars, she has Galdra's distinctive burnt smell, but I don't know who anyone else in this room even is.

"Welcome, Inquisitor," the Templar General says. "How was your break?"

He's a man, and the unknown High Templar is a woman. Templar Generals are basically just the rank above Templar Captains; we don't have anywhere near as many ranks as the army does. There's Captains, Generals, and then there's Templar Command. High Templars aren't part of those rankings, they are their own category.

"It was short, sir," I say frankly. "But I'm ready for duty."

He barks out a laugh.

"Good answer. Now then, we've all read your report. We have some questions for you, regarding your treatment of animavores."

I let my eyebrows raise slightly. I did admit that I fed Melissa during the decontamination, I suppose.

"Ask away," I prompt politely.

"What is your opinion on animavorism?" the General asks frankly.

I hesitate. Well, I suppose if I get excommunicated I might finally get to take a break, at least.

"I… well, I feel the need to acknowledge that my opinion comes from a position of ignorance," I blabber quickly. "I'm certainly no Preacher, but… um. Human souls, or I guess the souls of all sapient creatures, are sacred. The consumption of them is wrong. But animavorous ozoids don't eat humans. Melissa's case proves they can't. And to my knowledge they are naturally occurring creatures, so… it seems as though the Mistwatcher must keep them around for a reason?"

The Templar General turns his head to one of the armorless old men.

"Preacher?" he prompts.

"It is a good answer," the Preacher nods solemnly.

"What's your opinion on vrothizo, Inquisitor?" the General asks, turning back to me.

I blink. Non-sequitur, but okay.

"They're… extremely dangerous monsters," I answer. "Mindless and aggressive. They're an obvious problem."

"And if a vrothizo was not mindless and aggressive? How would you feel about that?"

"That's… a very open-ended question, sir," I hedge. "The details would greatly influence my answer."

There's a tension settling in the room, and I start getting the impression that my answer is very important. Galdra in particular seems… intense. More than usual, I mean.

"What would you do if you met a vrothizo that could both speak and reason, and didn't act with apparent aggression?" the General clarifies.

Well, that's an easy question, at least.

"I suppose I would introduce myself, sir," I say.

There's a brief pause, and then Galdra the Annihilator busts out laughing. What's so funny? What else am I supposed to do when I meet someone? The Templar General just looks around the room, receiving subtle nods from everyone else.

"All right then, Inquisitor," the General begins, "let me explain the current situation. As you well know, Ars Rainier is once again at large. We don't know where he is or what he's doing, but we must assume there will be hostile action. As a result, we are assigning at least one Inquisitor to every single Templar squad in order to act as animancy detection, defense, and consultation. The Inquisition is being split up, expanded, and largely de-classified, with the exception of how to actually cast animancy. That will be your first major duty to your new squad."

I nod. That makes perfect sense. I think something similar was done during the Ars crisis itself, at least after the Inquisition got purged of his influence. Ars and his thralls catching Templars alone is what allowed them to convert so many. …Kind of like what Lady Vesuvius did to me, actually. Except, y'know, with animancy.

"Your second major duty to your squad," the General says, putting an Inquisitor Captain's helmet on the table in front of him, "will be to lead it."

Watcher fucking damn it. No, no, no! I don't want to be and absolutely shouldn't be in charge of anyone! Why are they doing this? Why?

"I… It's an honor, sir," I say out loud.

"You will be captaining the yet-to-be-created Squad Fifty-Six," the General orders. "Which, lucky for you, means that your short break gets to last a little bit longer. You'll have a team of newbies, and you won't be going on any actual missions until they finish their training. We do expect you to report to their barracks and get to know them all beforehand, however."

"I… of course, sir," I acknowledge.

He nods, placing a set of folders next to the proffered helmet.

"These are the dossiers on your future squad members. Familiarize yourself with them; some of them have abnormal permissions and special needs. Though it's nothing you haven't demonstrated the capacity to excel at dealing with."

I swallow, stepping forward when he gestures to do so and flipping quickly through my team, quickly picking up the basics. Holy shit, I have a former tactical officer?

"Sir, with all due respect, am I really qualified for this?" I ask, my stress blooming brightly enough to finally protest.

"We're going to be dealing with two of the most powerful animancers in history, and we're doing it sooner rather than later," the General grunts. "As the only one to meet them both and return alive, I can't think of anyone more qualified."

"None of that is thanks to my own power," I argue. "I was just as helpless against Ars as anyone else. With all due respect, sir, you're expecting me to lead a team I'm going to be the weakest member of."

He drums his armored fingers on the desk, considering me.

"...Inquisitor, the absolute last thing we want is to put a Templar in charge because they're powerful," he says. "We don't want a Captain that solves problems with raw strength. We want a Captain that gets shit done because she's clever, and that's you. You might call it dumb luck, but I call it talent. A more important kind than the one the Watcher put in your soul."

I take a deep breath, and nod.

"Yes, sir," I acknowledge.

"Any other comments?" the General asks, turning to the High Templars.

"Take good care of the kid," Galdra orders me, "or I'll kick your ass."

Which kid…? No, it doesn't matter. I'll take care of them all. That's my job now, I guess.

"Yes ma'am," I answer her, and she gives me a curt nod.

"Interitus?" the General prompts the other High Templar.

"We like her," she hisses. "She will do."

I carefully control my reaction as my mind races. That name sounds like the dead language Ars uses, and the way she talks… Do we have a splice as a High Templar? I regret not having soul sight on, but it just seems gauche to cast animancy in a church.

"That will be all, then, Inquisitor Captain Jelisaveta," the General orders me. "You are authorized for additional animancy education, which will begin at dawn in two day's time, in the Inquisition headquarters. You are to associate with and familiarize yourself with your future team until then. You may introduce yourself as their future Captain, so long as you do not speak with the implication that their graduation is a foregone conclusion, as it is not. Pick up your new armor and weapons from the Quartermaster. Dismissed."

Numbly, I salute and exit the room, carrying my files and my new Watcher-damn helmet. Everyone I tried to save died. Why is anyone putting me in charge of more people? Well, it's a bunch of new people, at least. I probably won't be sent on any crazy missions with a team full of freshly-sprouted trainees. I start reading all the dossiers more carefully, trying to learn as much as I can before I meet everyone. Other than the tactical officer, the rest of them look normal so far, at least. Let's see, last one. Trainee Lark. That's a pretty name.

Halfway through reading the first page, I stop walking. When I'm done, I read it again. No way. No damn way. This has to be a mistake, right? Yet there it is, listed right at the top. Age: two years. Species: vrothizo. Confessed to multiple crimes including murder, torture, and consumption of human flesh. Confirmed animavore. Is allotted four living mice per day, to be delivered to the barracks and swallowed whole.

They feed her. They confirmed that vrothizo eat souls and they feed her, they've been feeding her since before the prison break. Why? Why this killer and not the innocent Melissa?

No matter how I think about it, I can't seem to stop Lady Vesuvius' words from echoing insidiously in the back of my mind.

Hypocrisy.