Messiah with butterlfy wings

The stench of decay was overpowering, the rotten blood slick under my fingers. Two's insect wings shed a glittering dust that corrupted everything it touched. It transformed the blood-soaked floor into a foul-smelling mush of decayed flesh and viscera. The sensation underfoot was revolting, but the humiliation of being forced to my knees was far worse.

Each breath was a battle, the pain from my broken ribs a constant reminder of my precarious situation. The stench of decay was nauseating, making each breath a torturous ordeal.

I had the power to heal myself. A single charged gem remained in my possession, a beautiful sapphire. But the thought of using it filled me with dread. My head throbbed as if someone was driving red-hot nails into it, a clear sign of overusing magecraft.

Archer was in no better shape. His face was a mask of blood, pouring from his nose and staining his mouth and chin a gruesome red.

In stark contrast, Two was almost pristine, save for a healed scar over his heart - a scar that had been there before the battle began.

"We can't win like this!" I yelled at Archer, desperation creeping into my voice. "Our magecraft is useless against him!"

Archer's response was immediate and fierce. "Then let's end this!" he roared back, his eyes burning with determination.

Naturally, I had informed my partner about that spell before casting it. Still, he was a bit merciless towards himself. 

In a realm in-between, an observer watched. Its form was eldritch, a kaleidoscope of flaming wheels within wheels, adorned with gem-like eyes. Many of these eyes were dark, but a few reflected the gruesome scene unfolding in the basement. The boy twisted into a monster, the girl weeping in a corner, and the beautiful Elf with blood-red hair.

The same battle, yet from my perspective, the details varied.

In some reflections, Archer would engage with a sword, in others, he would loose arrows at Two. And in some, he would conjure a rain of swords.

The eye that had observed the previous scene dimmed, rendering that series of events an unrealized possibility, a never-when. Most of these virtual possibilities were discarded, except those where I met my end. I remembered with chilling clarity the sensation of decaying into a sludge of rotting flesh and bone, my throat crushed, my ribs piercing my heart. As the twins had said, dying was unpleasant, but one could grow accustomed to it.

This observer, taking the form of an angel, could be considered my true self while the spell lasted. A central node through which all data and Od flowed, where I decided what to keep and what to discard.

The addition of angelic imagery had indeed enhanced Shatter. But another observation was that using the spell in isolated spaces, like a Reality Marble, also helped. It limited the observable universe to a small fraction, significantly reducing the Od cost.

How fortunate that Archer could create one. It was a shame that Unlimited Blade Works was ineffective in this situation, but Two's Reality Marble, powered by countless sacrifices, couldn't be overwritten.

I had seen the abandoned variants where Archer had tried and failed, succumbing to the backlash and leaving me to face Two alone.

The most promising variant was one where we placed our faith in divine providence, relying solely on faith and miracles.

The decay dust struck the mirror shield, an orange hue blooming as the glowing particles met mercury.

It was expected. This power was designed to hunt those who had strayed from the path of humanity, those who had traded their humanity for something else - love, sorrow, greed, or something even more peculiar.

If I had more faith, I wouldn't have wasted Od confirming it. But doubt was in my nature. I needed certainty, and now I had gathered enough data to achieve it.

"Give it to me!" Two roared, wings spread wide, a claw-like finger aimed at me. "Give me your light! I need it! All of it!"

I didn't bother to respond. My words would fall on deaf ears. I had tested that theory.

With a swift gesture, he launched a telekinetic blast at me. I moved my hand, and the fluid metal flowed to intercept the blast. The quicksilver rippled as it absorbed the force.

Archer seized the distraction, slashing at Two with a flying iron sword. The damage vanished almost instantly, but the exoskeleton was replaced by human skin. That was our glimmer of hope. The divine powers were slowly restoring the boy's humanity, piece by piece. We just needed to strike enough times to separate him from the demon.

"I need it!" Two's shouts echoed through the space. "I can save them! I just need to kill him again! And again! Until he finally stays dead!"

He vanished. It wasn't quite teleportation. I had deduced it was a twisted form of retrocausality. He altered his past actions and crudely stitched the results into the present.

Thankfully, it had limits. Otherwise, we would already be dead. One of these limits was that he couldn't appear too close to either of us. I calculated a minimum distance of one meter.

At my command, the mercury reshaped into eight mirror shields orbiting me. From all the variations I had observed, I had a good grasp of Two's general combat strategies. Not that he employed overly complex patterns.

After such a movement, he would typically engage in close combat.

But his target wasn't me, it was Archer. I saw it reflected in the quicksilver.

Two's mouth gaped open, unnaturally wide. A stinger-tipped, proboscis-like tongue shot out, aiming for Archer's back. It was too late for warnings, but Archer didn't need them.

With practised ease, my partner ducked, the monstrous tongue missing his face by a hair's breadth. A flying sword followed, severing the twisted appendage. It fell to the floor, writhing like a beheaded snake, before fading from existence.

I shattered one of the mirror shields into a cloud of floating silvery droplets and launched it at Two.

But it was too late. He had already vanished again.

While this was happening, I had discarded a few more variants. The spell had nearly served its purpose.

Behind me!

I repeated a manoeuvre that had worked in another variant. I used one shield to block the force ball Two launched and morphed another into a slender whip. As the insect boy dodged the whip, I rushed him.

Two's demonic corruption made him fast and strong, but he lacked my skill in hand-to-hand combat. However, I couldn't hurt him with my bare hands. It was a feint, a matter of timing.

Just as Archer launched a sword at him, I grabbed the butterfly boy's right wrist, holding him in place. The sword sliced through, leaving me holding a severed claw. Then both the claw and the boy disappeared.

He reappeared on the other side of the room, his right hand now completely human. His voice, once a twisted combination of human and insect, was now a normal boyish tone. "If I do not kill him first, he kills the others, and then he kills me. But killing is not enough. He comes back. So I kill him again and again. Why?!"

The revelation brought a measure of relief. If the boy had been dead before possession, then I hadn't erred when I bound the imaginary demon. Not that one, at least. Though, with the benefit of hindsight, some improvements in the process were evident. But that was a matter for after-action review.

More intriguing was the identity of the one who had killed the psychic children. The identical corpses must have been his handiwork. Countless attempts.

The cause of Two's failure was clear, and it wasn't something that could be easily solved by brute force. Not unless he somehow managed to obliterate the present entirely.

But one thing still puzzled me. We were too far in the past. At least a year, but less than five.

Another wave of the deadly dust.

I shielded myself with a half-dome of quicksilver, while Archer summoned iron swords. Bright orange and rust red.

Another variant was discarded. The cursed red spear had failed. The combination of reversal of causality with whatever Two used had explosive results. I had already exhausted every other instant death effect at my disposal. All had failed.

We couldn't kill Two in one strike. And every wound we inflicted while he was within this instance of his Reality Marble was soon undone. Except those dealt with the elemental power we had learned in the exorcist camp.

Five swords, forged of chemically and spiritually pure iron, flew in attack formation. Two tried to intercept them with blasts of force, but the swords scattered and dodged.

Meanwhile, I had transformed half of my mercury into a colorless gas. While the demon host was distracted by Archer's frontal attack, I prepared to strike unseen from behind.

The swords struck the invisible wall of force. But the dust emanating from the giant butterfly wings was turning orange. I condensed the remaining pure mercury into teardrop-shaped blades that tore at the wings.

Two fell. His strangely beautiful wings were shredded into ruin. The wall dissolved and the swords followed. Two managed to cut into his exoskeleton before the boy was gone.

Two reappeared, wingless, and the tide of the battle finally turned. Without his wings, there was no more deadly dust. His other powers were easier to defend against.

Now it was just a test of endurance.

I ended the spell. Now that the path to victory was clear, it was unnecessary. The pressure in my head lessened slightly. It still felt as if someone was hammering nails into my brain, but at least those nails were no longer on fire.

We separated the boy from the demon, cut by painstaking cut. The process was neither pleasant nor swift.

We chiselled away his ingrown chitin armour piece by piece, revealing the pale human skin beneath. After each cut, he vanished, and we were forced to hunt him down again.

And it wasn't without danger. Two's telekinetic powers were his own, and although they diminished as he became more human, they never truly disappeared. And he still had one sharp claw, until we severed that hand.

With mercury, I gouged out his insect eyes, revealing his human ones.

With iron and mercury, we continued to excise every inhuman piece until Two appeared entirely human.

Until he coughed up a butterfly from his mouth and curled up on the dirty basement floor, weeping.

Archer knelt next to the boy, offering comfort.

I addressed the butterfly in a firm voice, "By the seven secret names, you will submit to me."

The seven secret names were not the names of the demon. I was not so foolish as to name it. Although it was getting perilously close to earning a Unit Designation. If we had dallied for a day or two, this would have been exponentially more difficult.

Using a computer metaphor, those names were akin to the root password. Every demon binder had something similar, and it was always their most closely guarded secret. Because with them, one could assume complete control over bindings, even those made by another. Unlike computer passwords, these names had to carry weight, meaning. It did make them somewhat easier to guess, although being wrong could be lethal. Demon hacking often ended with hackers being hacked to pieces.

The butterfly obediently settled on my palm and I issued the next command, "Report. I want to know everything you have done since we parted."

I pondered how the demon would obey that order. Would it speak for the first time? Attempt to convey information through interpretive dance? Communicate mentally?

The answer was none of the above. There was no attempt at communication. I simply remembered the answers to my query.

I closed my eyes and began to sift through the inserted memories.

Two had not been chosen at random. Guided by my desires, the butterfly demon had sought out someone who had been hurt and yearned to inflict pain in return. It had initially sought those who had committed murder with dark reflection. But it was too new, and I had intercepted one of the monsters too soon.

So it had looked to when worlds intersected before.

There it found the massacre at Hawkins Lab. And a boy teetering on the brink of death in the past.

The next part was somewhat unclear. The fusion of boy and demon made those memories difficult to decipher. It was akin to trying to recall a fever dream. Disjointed images, punctuated by utterly alien emotions.

But I could piece together a rough timeline.

Brenner had sent someone to scout through the gate, and by killing that scout, Two discovered how to drain Od from people. It was natural that he would develop such an ability since his existence required a constant supply of magical energy. The moment of his death pulled him like inescapable gravity.

But it was also the reason why Two could not be killed. His death was reduced to a singular possibility, anchored in a precise moment in time and space. After all, one could hardly die twice. It was not an unknown method of attempting immortality, even if the execution was new to me. A particularly notorious example was Коще́й the Deathless placing his death in a needle that was hidden inside an egg, the egg was in a duck, the duck was in a hare, the hare was in a chest, and the chest was buried or chained up on a far island. Death prophecies were another example of the phenomenon.

But it always ended the same way. Once the many possible deaths collapsed into a singular one, it became inevitable. Because it was "measured" by an "observer". That path could never lead to true immortality, but it could delay death for a time.

That did not make it useless. There was value in delaying death even for a second.

Just, the implementation was a bit too crude. There were many problems with it but two were critical.

I had compared the pull that inevitable moment had on the boy to gravity. There was a little problem with that metaphor. The pull of gravity lessened with distance, while for this it was reverse. The further the doomed boy departed from the inevitable point, in both space and time more energy was required to keep him away from it.

The space requirement could be seen as similar to some vampire species requiring dirt from their own graves to rest in. It was an easily solvable problem as long the boy stayed near the place of his demise.

The time component was more tricky. Each second boy lived he moved further away.

The way Two had arrived at this state was deeply troubling. The boy was possessed. What kept him alive was also what stripped him of both his sanity and humanity.

Removing the demon would result in his death. Not removing it would end with the demon completely subsuming the unfortunate boy, creating what can only be described as a catastrophe.

However, while Two was in this particular instance of his Reality Marble, mired in the past, close to the time of the critical event, he would remain stable.

I had some time to try to find a third solution, if one existed.

I found myself distracted again. Before doing anything else, I needed to finish what I started. I still had questions that needed answers. What happened next? How did Two and Will Byers meet?

Two discovered that the gate to Papa was barred to him. He couldn't pass. He lingered for a time and then went exploring. First the ruins of the lab, and then the outside world, filled with mist and ash.

He wandered through the dead forest. It was a new experience. Papa never let them wander outside, but it soon became monotonous. The light in the vines that choked the trees was edible, but not as sweet as the soldier he had consumed. He didn't know how to feel about that. He should have been horrified, but all he could feel was a distant yearning for more. Eating it also attracted monsters. They were scary at first, but he soon found that they were also edible. They tasted the same as the vines. Unappetizing.

Following the road, he found the abandoned town. He entered empty houses and took what he wanted. The food tasted like ashes, even worse than the vines. He tried on clothes but soon abandoned them. He played with toys, but that was less interesting to do alone.

It was lonely. Two wasn't used to being alone. He searched the town for anything but the monsters.

At this point, Two was starting to perceive the past directly by sight. Or rather that was how his human mind interpreted the alien senses of the demon. It was a bit like adding depth to a flat image.

If I didn't have some similar experience with True Magic, I would have failed to understand those memories. It was overwhelming to see everything that happened in the field of vision up to the present moment. It helped that the Upside Down had a very shallow history.

Two discovered traces of another human, a younger boy. From sight alone, I recognized him as Will. Two followed these traces, leading him to the younger boy's hiding place, a small wooden fortress. But by the time he found it, Will had already left.

The disappointment was palpable. Two had been so eager to meet him. His desire was so strong that, for the first time, the demon fully unfurled its Inner World.

The butterfly's Reality Marble guided Two to a past moment when Will was still in the shack, or rather, adjacent to that moment. The demon burrowed through time until it reached the required depth. Then it created a malleable slice of false past. Once altered, this bubble of false history would travel upwards through time in isolation until it reached the moment of insertion, where it would proceed to replace the original history with its own revision.

This description is imperfect, but it's the best I can do in human language. Human language is defined by human experiences, not the Alien Logic that guides demons. Math might be a better medium, but I would have to combine equations from two completely different models of the universe.

Once again, I found myself distracted.

Will panicked at the sight of his visitor. It could have been because Two was naked, but more likely it was due to his insectoid eyes. Being trapped in a place with monsters had reduced Will's tolerance for the strange and unusual.

The subsequent events were a bit unclear. While I could easily decipher actions, motivations were harder to discern, mainly because Two was slowly descending into madness.

He tried to calm Will, using psychic Mental Interference. Whether Two was simply caught in a feedback loop or had planned to seduce Will from the start, I couldn't tell, even with his memories at my disposal. But he did rely on his sexual arousal and life hunger boosting each other. He lost control and was left with a desiccated corpse.

He fled then, away from his crime, back to his present. And then back to the lab.

But now, Two knew that he could change the past.

Naturally, his first instinct was to prevent his own murder (and that of the other Numbers), by eliminating the murderer before the act could be committed.

The first attempt failed. I could understand why. But there were repercussions. An invasion of monsters. And the manifestation of echoes of those killed in the Hawkins Lab Massacre.

As Two's sanity deteriorated, it became increasingly difficult for me to comprehend what transpired.

But I knew that it wasn't just one attempt, but many. And it wasn't just one wave of monsters, but several.

I also knew that Two managed to establish contact with Brenner in the past. And he began receiving sacrifices afterwards.

I opened my eyes. That was all the information I could extract. Between Two's Mental Pollution and the myriad failed revisions of histories vying for existence, the rest of the memories were too corrupted for me to safely examine.

While I was preoccupied, my partner was also busy. Archer had removed his shirt and given it to the formerly naked boy. Since he was much taller than Two, the elven shirt was long enough to cover the boy's private parts. I wished that I had stored more elven clothes before leaving Arda. They were still the most comfortable things to wear.

"Why?" Two suddenly asked. The boy's eyes were red and puffy from crying but were at least human blue. "Why didn't it work? Why was he so unstoppable?"

"Mainly because you were going about it the wrong way," I replied. Archer shot me a glare. I had been a bit too blunt, and he had just managed to calm the boy. Realizing my mistake, I tried to soften the blow. "Considering your age and circumstances, you've done quite well. But you need to consider the plausibility of a timeline."

"Plausibility?" the boy asked, confused.

"When you change the past, you must do it in a way that it's plausible for the new past to lead to the event of you changing the past," I explained. "In other words, you need to avoid creating a paradox. In your case, since the massacre was the prelude to the first intersection, which allowed the demon to find and possess you, which gave you the power to change the past. Because of that, the Hawkins Lab Massacre is one event that you cannot prevent. Attempting to do so just resets everything to the beginning."

It was a bit of an oversimplification, but introducing math into the explanation would only confuse the boy further.

"Is that why he keeps coming back?"

"At least you had your revenge," Archer commented, his hand resting on the boy's shoulder. "Was it enough?"

"No. Until I get them all back, it will never be enough. Otherwise, why was I brought back?"

To inflict suffering. But it would hardly help to say that. However, my assumption about the nature of Two and the other numbers was incorrect. From the look in Archer's eyes, I saw that he realized it too. Probably sooner than me, but then again he was a Faker. Although this was a bit different, it was still close to his specialty. This revelation changed everything.

"Instead of stopping the murderer, it might be possible to save some of the victims," I conceded. "But that would bring other problems."

"What other problems? Please save them! You have to!" the boy shouted at the end.

"Shh," Archer said, gently patting the boy's head. "Anger may seem like it's helping, but that's just an illusion. I know it's scary, but you need to stay calm and listen."

Two visibly gritted his teeth, but he quieted down.

"The main issue is that this little butterfly is actually incapable of altering the past. It can observe it, but actual interaction with the past is beyond its power."

"But aren't we in the past now?"

"No. We're merely adjacent to it. A small pocket that contains a copy of a small part of the past. It will only intersect with reality once it reaches the present. Then it will try to supplant it."

"I don't understand. Wasn't I saved by changing the past?"

"No. You were never saved. Two is quite dead. You are just not him."

"You're lying."

"I think that you know deep down that you're not quite real. And neither were those you have raised. That's why they were so incomplete. And so fragile."

"I…"

"I had thought that the demon had managed to twist my bindings by possessing a dead boy, but that wouldn't work. But possessing a fake boy? That could work."

"What about a paradox!" the boy exclaimed. "If there's no time travel, a paradox won't matter!"

"You're a very smart boy. Or at least a copy of a very smart boy. That reset wasn't a paradox, it just looked like one. The demon must believe in the rewritten history for it to work. It must regard it as true. So when the massacre was prevented, the gate was lost. And the demon was outside the bounds. To prevent that, it simply reset the event."

"You're being too harsh," Archer interrupted me. His tone was chiding and he was frowning. His hand was on the boy's shoulder.

"Until the boy accepts the truth we cannot proceed. Unless you want the two of us to decide his fate without his input. He is old enough to decide what is best for him, if he understands the situation," I retorted. "Coddling him would just waste time we don't have."

"Remember what Glorifindel taught us: fast is slow," Archer said, "That applies to more than swords." He then said to the boy, "Even if your memories are inherited, they are also yours. There's no reason why the copy can't become better than the original."

Two briskly pushed Archer's hand from his shoulder, "I am not weak. You said that I have a choice to make. Tell me."

"There's one more thing you need to know. Now that you're separated from this," I said, extending the hand on which the butterfly demon was resting, "You're going to fade soon."

"How soon?"

"As soon as this place ends."

"Choices?"

"The first is simpler. You could fade, like a forgotten memory. Your whole existence has been hard, so if you want to end it, it's your choice."

"Next," he instantly rejected it.

I smiled, pleased.

"Second, this place could be made to last much longer, if we set it in observation mode. Something like a loop. If you stay within, you'll be safe."

The boy laughed. It was not a happy sound.

"So, I am to watch my family die, again and again, unable to help. That sounds like hell. Are you perhaps a devil, sir?"

"The third choice would be to rejoin you and the demon. You already know the consequences of that."

"Oblivion, hell, or madness. Such nice choices. Are you trying to convince me to die peacefully?"

"There's a way to delay synchronization, to slow the rate of possession. It would buy you some time."

"How much?"

"A decade at most?"

"And then I go mad?"

"And then I put you down," Archer firmly added.

It was a more merciful, and safer option than just sealing him somewhere when the time came.

"There's another choice. You could take Two's place."

"To die you mean. And why would I do that?"

"Because at least one of you gets to live a full life as a human. There hasn't been enough time for you to diverge that much, so you're more or less the same. You're not sacrificing yourself to save a stranger."

"How? You said that the past cannot be changed."

"I said that this thing lacks the ability to do so. I am not so limited. The circumstances have aligned to make that possible. We are very close to the appropriate moment, and you are very closely tied to it. Making a switch is within my power."

"Will he remember?"

"Probably. I expect it to take the form of the Dream Cycle."

"If he doesn't, tell him that he owes me to survive to old age. Really old. Decrepit. Older than Papa."

"I promise. You've made your choice."

"Yes. But you knew which I would make. That's why you put it last."

"I hoped. But I would have honoured it if you had chosen otherwise. Any other requests before we start?"

"Can you do the same for Three, Four, Five, and the others?"

"I don't have anything to switch them with."

"Can you use that thing to make copies like me?"

"Not enough power to do that and switch. Too much has been wasted."

Archer interjected, "Do you really need living copies? They're about to be killed anyway."

"False corpses would suffice, but since the murderer is taking something from them, they need more significance."

"Trace on," Archer incanted, and his hand was filled with more than a dozen ancient-looking arrows. There was a purple sheen on the arrowheads.

"Mystic code?" I asked.

"Noble Phantasm. Hercules' arrows. From the seventh, when he was summoned in the Archer class."

"Are those arrows not dipped in hydra blood? I thought you don't approve of poisoned food." Since Hercules died by the same poison, when he was summoned as an Archer Servant he was vulnerable to the venom on his own arrows. We won using that.

"I make an exception for child eaters. They deserve some special spices."

"That would work. But if the murderer dies after killing the first child, we would fail. That would be a too great alteration of the timeline."

"The hydra's blood is just a very imperfect copy. It will take a long time to be lethal. About five years or more."

"And you can make those arrows into convincing doubles?"

"Trust me."

I took all the charged gems I had left and wove them into coloured shining threads. Red for ruby, green for emerald, blue for sapphire… Every drop of mana would be needed for what came next. I spun them over my hands, and between my fingers, forming them into a cat's cradle. Then I cast the spell with the same name.

Twist and turn until I made a spider web of many colours.

"By the name that binds you, come into the web," I ordered the butterfly, and it flew into it.

As I tangled the butterfly into the web, the space and time around also twisted and moved. The body parts and blood vanished as if they were never there, and the basement was replaced with other parts of the building, all fresh. One by one, still images of the children in hospital gowns appeared, all immobile, captured just a moment before they were killed. Two was the last.

The boy looked at his twin image, almost reaching to touch it.

"Stop. Don't touch it. I have no idea what would happen if you did. Maybe nothing, but best not to risk it."

Archer was next. He approached the other children one by one. With each, he spent a few moments altering the arrow in the body that was identical to the child. Meanwhile, I held the pattern between my palms immobile. It was not easy. My head was pounding and blood was pouring down my nose. I was not the only one, Archer's nose was bleeding too.

When he was done with the last child, I performed the final twist, switching the children and the doubles.

The action shredded the butterfly, and the Reality Marble ended. Leaving me, Archer, and the now alive children in the ruined room.

The backlash hit, and I fainted.