[Commission] Path to Living 1 [Worm/The Last Wish]

Forgot to post this here.

This is gonna be a short one, planned out to be 7 chapters of 2k words each. Whether I hit that mark accurately remains to be seen.

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    They had finally won. The golden man has died, and the monster they created to kill him has been dealt with. Fortuna breathed a sigh of relief as she looked over a sunrise at the beach. Where was she? An Earth somewhere. It didn't really matter.

    One thing that Cauldron always did, parallel with the various 'kill Scion' plans, was trying to answer the question of 'what next'? They assumed that the battle with him would have a horrific toll in both death and infrastructure… but they also assumed that they would have at least some of their resources remaining from victory. As Kurt put it, the vast majority of their resources wouldn't be useful against Scion, so it was supposed to be saved for the aftermath.

    It was nice, how not only was that decision vindicated, but her biggest blindspots were now out of play. The Endbringers were quiescent, Glastig Ulaine was always within the Path's ability to predict, and Eidolon's ghost did not change that.

    True, there were… some paths that were occluded, but they were only if she tried to Path a way to kill or defeat the powerful parahuman: the Path was perfectly capable of ensuring that it never comes to that.

    Besides, they'll need her for the rebuilding. She has the second most important support cape to pair with her own abilities. "Door me." Fortuna said, and walked through the portal that appeared. It was scheduled instead of guided via the Clairvoyant, but it was funny to say it anyway.

    "You seem in good humor today, Herald of the Eye." Ciara said conservationally. "I suppose it's a fine enough day for it, even with all that stands before us." She waved her hand and Doormaker's ghost faded away. Their meeting place was not a former Cauldron facility, as those were all compromised by thoes who were still hostile. Instead, they were in an office building on an Earth that was untouched by Gold Morning. It was untouched by Parahumans until very recently, in fact, which made it the perfect base to stay without being noticed. They decided to call it Earth Resh-Lamed.

    "Yes, now that the biggest threats have been dealt with, we'll need you more than ever." Kurt said seriously. "The number of refugees are in the tens of billions,"

    "73,920,844,981." Fortuna recited after establishing a Path to do so.

    "-thank you." Kurt said sincerely. "Between-" He paused.

    "208." Fortuna said, as she took another step on the Path to giving Kurt accurate numbers. His power was great for dealing with large data sets, but it didn't allow him any particular insight into things he cannot sense. The more removed his perspective, the less effective he was.

    "-worlds, that's going to require quite a bit of interventions to ensure that the loss of life will be minimized." Ciara nodded in approval. "In particular, we need to ensure that the people that do thrive are inclined to create a stable society, if we want to maximize long-term survival."

    "Yes. We decide who lives, and who dies." Fortuna summarized, "Just like always."

    "Just so." Kurt agreed. "Let's begin."

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    Every so often, there was a lull in the Path, created by the Path to getting adequate breaks while working. Fortuna liked going to some less developed Earths to go on a pleasant stroll when that happens. The Path walked her through some meditative breathing as she took in the scenery, and she could feel her stress melt away as she let the sounds of nature soothe her.

    Wait, was that… whistling? The Path didn't seem to acknowledge it as notable, so it wasn't an issue, but… hm. Something was off.

    Still, the portal opened at the end of her break, as scheduled. Unlike literally everyone else, the Path let her send instructions to Ciara to have Doormaker ready at particular times, and also send instructions for Doormaker's ghost to read and execute, minimizing the amount of stress cooperating with her created. So despite the loss of the Clairvoyant, she was still able to make use of the portals without a problem.

    "The numbers are improving." Kurt commented as she put her gun holster, knife sheath and suit jacket back on.

    "Good." Fortuna said, taking a tiny step off the Path to say it. These particular weapons were relatively new, she acquired them recently in Earth Resh-Lamed. However, in the vast majority of Paths, these kinds of weapons, a semi-automatic pistol and a combat knife, were all she needed to handle whatever personal combat needs she may have.

    A pistol, after all, kills men. Much like a sword, it had no use other than killing human beings, although the Path has shown her quite a few other tricks that were essentially impossible to replicate.

    After she finished equipping herself, another portal opened up. "Will you be eating on the go, then?" Kurt asked, sipping at his coffee.

    "Yes." She replied, stepping through the portal. The instant it closed, she fired her pistol once, twice, three times. With each shot, another body hits the floor. The massive interconnected urban sprawl that's building between the various permanent portals that never closed from Gold Morning has shaky infrastructure at the best of times, but these people planned to seize control over a power plant and reap profits from it.

    Kill three men, save one thousand five hundred and fourteen people from death, ten thousand, four hundred seven people from doing on a downward spiral that caused even greater death tolls, and prevented one hundred twenty-seven thousand, six hundred ninety-five from having an unpleasant day as collateral non-damage.

    Just another drop of blood in the bucket. Another portal opened up, and Fortuna drew her knife.

    Three down, eighty-four more kills to go before lunchtime. The Path of least death beckons.

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    Weeks later, Fortuna had not even slowed down. Every day, the Path led her to take action to minimize the number of deaths among the survivors of Gold Morning. Sometimes, it involved dropping information into the normal intelligence apparatuses of what governments existed. Sometimes, it involved leaving a tip to the Wardens. But most of the time? It was killing villains before they could really get going.

    The Wardens had her on file as a serial killer. She didn't dispute the label.

    "Who needs to die today, Herald of the Eye?" Ciara said idly as Fortuna mechanically ate the meal that she had prepared for herself. It was simple; toaster waffles along with strawberry syrup and real butter, served with two hard-boiled eggs.

    "Two hundred and one people today." Fortuna said mechanically. Back when Cauldron was acting more covertly, when she had to hide her actions from the Protectorate instead of just letting the Wardens build up a dossier on her actions, she didn't usually need to kill so many people directly. Indirectly, she dealt with orders of magnitude more death, but the disorganized… everything as the worlds rebuilt on top of their depleted resources meant that they lacked the leverage to make big changes, only snuff out each candle of disaster one by one.

    Ciara hummed approvingly. "Any faeries that will become useful to us?"

    "No." Fortuna said between bites. "Has anything anomalous occurred?" By asking, she double-checked the Path's accuracy. It wouldn't do to be caught off guard by a blind spot.

    "The Queen Administrator has been busy." Ciara commented idly.

    The Path answered her mental inquiry, giving her the steps to explain what Ciara was talking about. "Chicken Little has debuted as a Warden. He's young, but his status as a former Brockton Bay resident has been noted by news outlets. He's taken in seventeen criminals in his three days of work."

    "An adequate summary." Ciara said, "The Eye still sees." Good.

    With the last of the waffles consumed, and the small smear of syrup on her lips was wiped away (discussing things with Ciara outside the path meant that she had to suddenly rely on her own dexterity for a moment), Fortuna stood up and walked towards a wall, where Ciara obligingly had Doormaker form a portal. She gave the echo his instructions while the waffles were in the toaster.

Fortuna drew her pistol from its holster. According to the Path, she'll only have to do this for another… three hundred fifty four million, four hundred twenty-three thousand, five hundred ten seconds. Then she'll drop dead, and this whole mess will be Ciara's problem. Perfect.

    Step who gives a ram's anus: Fire pistol twice. Next step: pivot to avoid the Blaster power, draw the knife. Steps n+2 to you get the picture: kill the other five targets. Ignore the ones who are fleeing the bar at the first gunshot.

    Fortuna didn't really know why she was killing these guys specifically… oh. Apparently they were working for the Yangban, cape traffickers. That does explain why step eight steps from now involved speaking on the phone in Chinese.

    The internet was basically entirely maintained by Dragon now, who keeps things reasonable despite the network spanning throughout most of the Earths. There were no separate phone networks any more, it was all moderated by computers.

    "You are still useful to me." She said eight steps later, in a language she didn't speak. "Do not overstep your mandate." She disconnected the call and dropped the phone back into the purse of the conveniently placed mother who was preoccupied with her laughing baby. No one else in earshot could understand her either, but it was what it was.

    The sad part was, the Yangban were still a source of stability where they held sway, and she was busy enough that the occasional slap on the wrist was more efficient in preserving society than the chaos that would emerge if the Yangban was to all suddenly drop dead. It would be easy, only one hundred and fifteen steps.

    It was worth discussing whether or not it was wise to allow them to exist, but for now, occasionally threatening them kept them from spiraling out of control, and by doing so she preserved the most lives in a sizable chunk of the human populace.

    She's spared others from death for worse reasons.

    Still, thirty-eight murders later, along with some intimidation and manipulation on the side, it was time for lunch. This was Earth Samech-Pe, and after making eye contact with her after-lunch target, she ordered in another language she didn't speak: "Get me the special."

    The special was some kind of thick meaty stew (lamb) along with freshly baked rye bread with goat butter. It was delicious, of course. The time of day here was before the lunch rush, right when the food was at its freshest in anticipation of the lunch crowd. Oddly, there weren't any other customers. Just her, the bartender, and her target.

    Hm. Something was wrong. She checked the Path for post-lunch activities, and didn't find anything that stood out to her. What was that ominous feeling?

    Wait. That whistling was back. The exact same tune. As before, the Path didn't have any comment on it. When it was background noise to her relaxation stroll, that was one thing. But now? Path to stopping that whistling.

    …Nothing. Shit. She accelerated the Path and drew her pistol, shooting the Master who enslaved people by shaking their hand in the face. He died like he lived: in complete obscurity. He was just a few days from executing his plan to Master the President of the United States at a campaign event, and even if the Path was being blinded by something, at least she accomplished her objective.

    "Hm. Early." commented the man who walked into the tavern. Oddly, the Path didn't translate his words, but she understood him perfectly anyway. He was large, and wearing a concealing cloak. "Eh, what's the difference? I'll handle that later."

    The mysterious man, distinguishing features concealed both from casual observation and the Path, sat beside her, completely ignoring her drawn pistol. The bartender had already fled back into the kitchen.

    Who was this?