The End Bringer (Patreon)

A/N: Massive tone shift from the previous chapters to start this off but good times. :D Hope you all enjoy! Full chapter should be released sometime tomorrow. Hopefully before I have to work, but more likely in the evening. 

XIII – STOP – XIII

Something felt different in the weeks that had passed. My mana had reached a cresting point. It took almost an entire days straight healing to tire me, now that Cura could heal most of the people who direly needed me, and that my spells were so much more effective. But each time I did so, I felt like I could do a little more the next day. Like I had a little bit more mana. If I didn’t manage to completely tire myself though, I didn’t feel that improvement. Like straining a muscle but only making gains if you brought it to the point of utter exhaustion. 

I kept doing it anyway. Seeking every frivolous and simplistic reason for healing that I could. I didn’t know why but I needed that Mana. I needed more of it for… for something. 

There was something there that I hadn’t found yet, when I burned my mana source. Not a spell, like my healing ones, but something deeper. Something powerful. While I was confident there were still plenty of healing spells that I had yet to find, I knew that this other thing was different. I didn’t really even want to find out what it was, but something in my gut told me I’d need it. 

I’d almost called it more than once, both in Coil’s base, and while seeing Glory Girl in all her rage induced violence. That glowing red… presense. Many of them, just like my spells, all diverse and waiting for me to learn the right pattern to call them. I tried to bring for that feeling again more than once. To… to summon it. But nothing came of it. My emotions needed to reflect my need and until I was in a situation that required it, I didn’t think I would be able to call whatever it was again.

So life went on. When I wasn’t in school, I was usually a hospital or clinic healing. It wasn’t tiring to me though, like it seemed to be to Panacea. It never got old and never felt like I was wasting my time. Each person had a new story, and a new reason to be healed. Perhaps it was because I actually had Panacea with me, but she seemed to thrive with my presence, while simultaneously giving me self confidence I’d never known I had. 

Her depression was hard to take sometimes though. She was avoiding Glory Girl, and got angry if I ever mentioned her. Since I got angry thinking about her, we both tended to avoid the subject. 

I remembered when I first sent that hopeful email. Then, I’d wanted nothing more than the respect Panacea had. Now, seeing the downtrodden girl only made me feel piteous of her. My glasses had been rose colored. Panacea had been respected, every bit as much as I’d thought, but she herself couldn’t see it. Instead of respect she saw greed, and instead of joyous gratitude she saw addicts and users. She’d felt herself a tool. She’d tried to make herself a tool, and felt that it was only right that she do so. 

She was livid with Victoria, but being separated from her was making her so gloomy. 

“Come on, Amy! Let’s goooo!” I yelled at the girl, injecting a false sense of giddiness into my voice. “We’re gonna be late!”

Amy gave me a long suffering sigh that held hints of a smile. “I haven’t finished this ward… Taylor maybe you should just go on without me. I know you’re out of mana but I can keep going so you should–!” 

“Stop!” I yelled exuberantly, channelling a me that didn’t really exist anymore. My manapool was practically empty and I felt like I’d metaphorically worked out for days. We’d been here for hours, and it was well into the afternoon on a gloriously warm April Saturday. More and more I realized that spending time with Amy was about getting her to be more than the self sacrificing healer she was. I’d realized slowly that the way to do that was that I had to be the outgoing one in our relationship. 

So… I faked it. I faked the way I used to be. Wonder of wonders, it worked, at least a little.

“You’re coming, Eeyore,” I insisted. “You’ve been at the hospital for days. It's time for a break, and this party tonight is exactly what we need!” 

“Stop calling me that!” She whined, showing the first hint of something other than her martyr complex influenced moroseness in hours. 

“If the shoe fits!” I exclaimed. Amy responded well to loudness, even if it was usually sarcastically. 

She’d been sad lately about something important and deep. I’d told her what Vicky had done, asking me to heal injured criminals for her. She hadn’t been surprised. Angry. So angry. But not surprised. Put together with Vicky’s claim that Amy had been avoiding her lately gave me a pretty solid clue as to what might be going on.

Charm. Vicky’s aura. It made sense. A horrifying sort of sense.

She’d never confirmed my theory, and I hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to ask, but she’d been depressed ever since. Like. Really depressed. Talking about her sister made her livid but not talking about her left the girl… just… lost. 

So I did the best thing I could think to do. 

I gave her the old me. The me that wasn’t afraid to be silly or loud or obnoxious. The me that… that I used to be. As best I could anyway. The energy I got from seeing the injured mended and the sick healed had put a brightness in my life that hadn’t been there since Emma snuffed it and sharing it was… not exactly easy. 

But it was worth doing. 

“Fine fine! We’ll go if it’ll get you to stop tugging on my arm, you prepubescent!” 

“I’m like a foot taller than you!” 

“Then act like it!” 

“Don’t wanna! I want to go ride roller coasters and you’re coming with me!” I whined like a child. 

She laughed. It was a small thing, but it was progress.