Convergence

Chapter Fifteen: Compassion

It felt an extreme pressure, beating down on it, keeping it down onto the ground.

Barely able to move its arms, the warlock looked down, its whole body dripping with blood. And it was its own this time.

Nobody'd ever done that. Not Zoey, not anyone.

But Nick did.

Nick had their arms held out, fingers twisted downwards, and eyes bulging with focus and emotion they couldn't quite express, a dangerous blue shining through the dangerous red that was the blood on their face. They saw the warlock as a physical thing, something it wasn't before—and with that, they could hold it down. So Nick looked behind them, showing another side of them to the group. With an unwavering voice, they simply said, "Go."

"You're right." Pyro cracked his nonexistent knuckles, nodding his head as he spoke. "We should fan out, attacking as you focus—"

The warlock hadn't felt pain like this before. It hadn't even felt any pain, not since it was living. And it thought it wasn't, but the blood was concrete proof. Someone could hurt it now, and it was the one it'd overlooked for so long.

When Nick was a child, the warlock expected another easy soul to grab. It actually expected them to be the first—they were silent, soft and weak, reliant on another child as soon as they met her—and knowing things they didn't know about themselves, there was no way they'd make it.

But what they didn't anticipate was this. They grew past the only things they knew, they ended up being the hero and survived their friends, cementing their legacy and their ability to rest by destroying the thing that destroyed them, and they were compassionate. They met someone who grew their powers as much as they grew hers, and the warlock's oversight (not realizing what Nick would do once she was gone) ended up sealing its fate as well.

So while Pyro was talking, all the warlock did was try to move. With grunts and whimpers of pain, it almost sounded human.

"No." Nick interrupted, pushing the warlock further into the ground, pulling up dirt.

"What?" Pyro stammered. "What do you mean, no?"

Nick squinted forward. "Go find Ella and Jackie. Stay with them. Don't wait up for me."

"Wait, Nick." Matilda's voice was breathless, bringing a hand up to their shoulder. They almost flinched at the touch. "You can't possibly be thinking about going this alone. We're here now."

Nick huffed. "This is my fight." Looking down: "Matilda, I couldn't let you get hurt again. I can't watch it. Not you, or Alistair, or Wylie, or any of you. This thing, whatever it is, it can kill you again and again, as many times as it wants. But right now... it can't hurt me."

"It can, Nick." Zoey slammed her staff down. "We aren't worried about ourselves. We would be fine as long as we aren't touched. You are still living, and you won't come back from death. Not as a soul, not as one of us—if you die, we can't bring you back."

So they stood silent for a moment. "...It was a long time coming. I'm fine with dying. I was never supposed to survive anyway. I've hurt people, I've killed people, and I've dragged people, children, down with me into this." Nick clenched their fists, pressure easing up on the warlock. Just barely. They looked back at everyone. "Please go."

Morgan's heard this before. So had Riley. So had everyone there. But as Morgan stepped forward, hugging Nick tightly around the waist, everyone did so as well. "Hey, Nick?" They said, being the first to pile into the group comfort. "I'm glad I met you. I'm glad all of us met you."