Übermensch (3rd Edition)

Day 071, 13:00:31

Screaming winds, freezing black cloud-swirls flashing white lightning smelling ozone –

I curve my flight, spiraling briefly, anticipating...

A call like thunder behind me: "MINE!"

Putting on speed, I arc downwards again, turbulence rippling my skin before a sonic shockwave BOOMS as I burst out into daylight while breaking the sound barrier, rocketing away from the black storm down through blue sky towards the gorge, with Protean Peak a distant, thin height...

"You are mine!"

I soar down into the gorge, speeding through rocky defiles then BLURRING past an overhanging escarpment, towards –

A Concussive Blast IMPACTS behind me, followed by the crumbling ROAR of the escarpment crashing down.

My whistling-fast gravimetric flight takes me up and out of the gorge before I immediately hurtle myself back to skim just above the terrain, nearing the Peak now...

It seems to be alone. Perhaps its desire for a chance at private justice has given me a real chance.

An idea!

"YOU!" it calls.

(Endings.)

I reach Protean Peak's base, corkscrewing up around its massively tall rocky pillarbody at increasing speed while also leaving replicating nodes in rockwalls before apparating randomly, to avoid concussive blasts, up and down along my flying route towards the peak –

"ARE!"

Speeding FASTER, I activate an endo-split to begin separating my internals, then my outer body down the middle in a process almost exactly like amoeba's binary fission as I reach the summit and SHOOT out –

- then apparate back again below the summit with energy CRACKLING up the Peak to join me when I shoot back over the summits riding its crest ahead of another sonic shockwave BOOM amidst a new type of spatial distortion which will apparate me well clear of any more purs–

IT appears before me. "MINE!"

Concussive force BLASTS me down, falling to impact back against the summit and carve through rock with my body, leaving behind a significant furrow in solid stone until I come to a bloody, broken stop.

I...

Groaning. My vision doubled, I look up: blurry sight of a figure gently floating down on broad white wings to land, wings furling back away into nothing as it begins walking towards me. Pain fades into my Sub Conscious mind's internal regulation. Rapid-healing reseals both of my splitting halves and I roll onto my side, grunting.

"Why?" it calls.

I push myself up into a twinging crouch.

(Organelles are re-threading.)

"Why are you doing this to me?" it asks.

I stare, wondering. "I am not doing this TO you."

(Bones are re-fusing.)

Its post-quantum/neuroplasticity Crown glimmering against the blue sky, my former Master stands above me. "Semantics."

"Yes," I agree.

(Muscles are re-knitting.)

A brief silence.