The self is a thing rarely revealed to others, be it by fear of rejection or a draw to lonesomeness. The emotional territoriality we hold to our own beings is expressed most deeply in those regions of self that we would prefer be untraversable to all but ourselves, hesitant as we are to social rejection. It is this dependency on social affirmation from which much inner turmoil can arise. And so there is the contradiction of forming oneself from what we see of others and are taught, yet to then build from these fragments a thing that none may wish to see reflected in their own eye.
But such things were Suki's right to construct, she felt, for with some justification she believed that others would erect opinions corrosive to her. She had adopted a sort of nihilism of personality, a rage of affirmation, in response to such things; she made little attempts at being liked. Attachments were not traps for her as it had been with Iris, but rather limitations of being; she had attempted to discard the opinions of all others, yet was ignorant that she could not dispel such a thralling by reactionarism alone. She could not recognize that the definition of herself by the annoyance of others was not dissimilar to the definition of herself by the like of others.
But this was no surprise, for Suki has never been very intelligent. She had never paid much attention in school, nor had much sense that it could have been a thing that mattered. To her this faint peel of reality and paid murder was all that she wished or needed to be, and it was a thing Iris could not understand, for she had always at least attempted to river out more of herself. Iris trained her body; she fucked Olivia; she trained her Revenant; she investigated and killed criminals, and was friends with Eva & Amelie, however little time she was allowed to spend with the latter now. Yet Suki held little imagination towards her own life, and only in the power of annoyance did she have much of a moment towards creation.
It was this odd slit of reality that she had tried to fill with more of herself, however limited such a conjuring could be.
For now Iris had brought Suki on a small hunting expedition in southern Florida, partially so that she could enjoy the menace that strength over other living creatures gave her, though already she had begun growing in strength and abilities beyond her initial set via the consumption of host hearts. In one hour alone she had already ripped the legs off from a bear that attacked them, its carcass sufficing for their breakfast before Iris headed out to the lake to fish with her.
"Can I use your gun?" said Suki.
Iris pat her Remington 870 shotgun. "Not after what happened earlier."
"Okay, whatever. Fine. Are you going to use your lightning on the fish?"
"No. Sometimes it's about keeping the tradition of a thing."
They rowed out to the water and Iris reverted her fishing rod back into her host aura, leaving Suki bored at the other edge of their boat. Iris felt slightly awkward, for she had hoped Suki might join in on this. She vaguely wished that Olivia was here with them, but had told her that it likely would not help Suki's envy to have her around; instead she had visited Olivia nightly. Though still there was that hesitance of fear, there had been a slow meld of sexual fantasy into her realistic romance with Olivia; a bit of allowed happiness had been good for herself. What she had worked through in the previous arc would seep slowly into the hemispheres of emotion and romantic love, however much she wished she could force such, for she thought Olivia deserved this emotional availability that she now believed herself capable of providing.
From Suki's phone there emanated a man's voice. "They say blood is thicker than water! Well, I know something that's thicker than blood and that's sap, and that's what you are Jimmy Garvin - you're a sap - you're an idiot, you're a moron-"
Iris recalled that whenever she would ask Suki to turn it down so she could focus during Timeline, Suki would turn it up for a few seconds before muting it. She rubbed the back of her neck. "What are you watching?"
"Wrestling."
"Amateur or professional?"
Suki looked up. "Pro."
Iris rubbed the back of her neck. "Natasha would show me a few clips of it. Didn't seem much interested in it beyond the muscularity of some of the women, but still, she liked that mix of athleticism and strength."
"I guess. They still don't let the women be as intimidating or aggressive as the guys. Sure, they're allowed to be bitchy, or appeal to kids, or whatever, but even you're bigger than all of the women on there."
"I do have an advantage when it comes to hypertrophy."
"Hyper-what?"
"Nevermind." muttered Iris. "Still, Suki. The unfortunate truth is that most straight people are still invested into the idea of women as homemakers and men as providers; men not only as masculine, but male; women as passive and men as active. They don't all reveal it in words, but they out themselves in subtle judgments or behaviors. And in some sense that accounts for how women like myself, or even you as a host get treated, because they view that nonconformity as an attack against their beliefs."
"I guess. I miss Chyna. 6 foot tall, muscles, menacing. No one else looks like she does now."
She showed Iris a picture of her, and Iris was saddened by how it reminded her of her old muscular mentor. She had never really been able to view Olivia as her mentor, and especially not now, so in remembrance of who had taught her to kill, it was Natasha that she would reach back in time towards. Sometimes it was tempting to rest her mind there, a frozen refuge from an unsteady present.
"...reminds me of Natasha." muttered Iris. "She was more muscular, though. Not as tall."
"She died, right? Your mentor?"
Iris nodded. "She did. Last December. I'll tell you about her sometime when I'm in a better mood. We were very similar. Partly why I took it as hard as I did." She teared up. "...p-partly why I want to be a good mentor to you. I don't want to leave you like she did me."
"You don't blame yourself for it, do you?"
Iris shook her head. "No. What I blame her for is that she didn't think to ask Serena or Kate for help. Naomi and Viktoria, I understand why she didn't. But in some sense I resent her, insomuch as I've found it easier to deal with through resentment than grief. Once, I believed I had an obligation to her memory; that my doubts about my own sense of direction could be remedied if only I believed in her more. And yet what paused me is when it caused me to think back to a relationship I once had, where I held my girlfriend to that same level of idealization, and I wonder if that was just another way I could hold away what I thought might harm me if I ever admit it was close. Natasha's death had temporarily made me wipe away her moments of stupidity and other unfavorable qualities; my mind sought to reduce her living color to something simpler. Maybe if I believed she was simpler then I'd forget she was real."
"It sounds like you were trying to look away from your own pain."
"Maybe so. Would it have been better if I had lost some great ideal rather than my mentor? She isn't replaceable, but at least if I viewed her as human, then I could pretend that somebody else might replicate those feelings in me."
"Maybe, but sometimes it's better just to think about shit simply. That's what I do with my parents. Fuck 'em."
"True. But it helps my guilt to admit she was never good at making the best decisions for herself. Lately, it's mostly been her old mentor Viktoria who tries to wedge that obligation I supposedly have to Natasha further into me." Iris wiped her eyes. "Sometimes I'm weak enough I believe her. Sorry, I'm talking all about myself and nothing about you."
"I mean, I don't really want to talk about my parents anyway. They're both fucked up. Especially my mom. She always looked at me more like a rival than a daughter. But, whatever. That's why I left when I was a kid."
"Is that why you don't have your last name listed on your registration?"
"Yeah, and I'm never telling you what it is, so don't ask."
Iris rubbed the back of her neck. "I'm sorry. You know, if you want to talk about it-"
"I really don't, dude. I don't need or want your sympathy. I already know the empathy people have for me is just because they wanna fix some shit that they think people did to me, or just because they wanna talk about their own problems and pretend it's anything like mine. Well, I don't let that shit happen, so don't bother trying. I don't make my problems other people's problems."
Iris frowned. Over the weeks she would notice such reactions in Suki; she seemed to wish for no empathy at all from Iris, as if her word an identifying thing for that which plagued Suki, the shame over her behavior lesser than that which formed such things. "Just think it's a terrible thing to hate one's parents."
"Yeah, that's what I mean. You just look at me and you put your own problems into me. I mean, your own parents are dead and I'd kill both of mine if I could."
Iris felt provoked by the stab at her parents, yet realized such was likely Suki's method of diverting the conversation away from herself. She presumed it some form of abuse that had molded Suki into the woman she was, yet felt frustrated by her lack of knowledge; she was as stubborn as Iris had been, her issues seemingly angled from her youthful own. Logic could not penetrate through her hemispheres of thought, nor sympathy her rationalizations.
For now Iris continued to fish, became frustrated after none bit, then checked the lake for civilians before throwing a bolt of red lightning into it and hundreds of fish floated to the top. She gathered up what she could alongside Suki's tendrils, then was interrupted by a call through her tablet. It was the local police, stating that a man had gone missing nearly a month ago. While no evidence directly implied this was caused by a Revenant, Iris was becoming known for investigating unsolvable cases such as this, and after she surmised that the police could not fuck this up further, she agreed to investigate such on her own.
At the entrance of the lake she crouched down and focused, her Timeline soon pulling out a host aura that she presumed was him. By the patter of dirt, she tracked it out of her Timeline and to the lake itself, pushing his boat forward through time as he went out to the lake. The sensed disturbance of water near him a few times later indicated to Iris he had caught something, then returned home. What this was she would not be able to tell even if she chose to Timeline again, for she knew such would be contained in his host aura regardless.
"So he's a host." muttered Iris. "Could be luring us in, but it'd be a hell of a long con if he's been missing for a month."
"You sure it's the same guy?"
"Time matches up. Even if it isn't, finding another rogue host would be good. Let's check his house."
They went out to his home, which was a rural cabin at the end of a long dirt road. She scanned the previous states of the front door and did not see any movement but for when the police had broken in, so with a slice of wind cut open the entrance and stepped inside to the kitchen. She passed through there and to the hall beyond, then through a doorframe right into the living room, a television & sofa, the door to the bedroom at the other end of the room.
She crouched down and focused, allowing Kairos to crawl off from her as she began her Timeline. An hour passed, yet as she attempted to pull her extended strip of time back towards herself, she felt an intrusion that resisted such motion, and it was then that she realized a host aura permeated the home itself. She swiftly rose and Kairos' webs withdrew to her back, feeling the ribcage of the home breath around her, and she muttered in the next instant: "Fuck."
Every light & window in the home slammed shut and plunged the women into darkness, and as Suki transformed they felt the home alight to life around. An accelerated spot of air afore Iris's eyes heated into a sphere of light, yer from the kitchen there came a wave of fire towards the two -
- but Suki's horns became the spitting mouths of archerfish and their streams of water extinguished the wave of flame; she turned her aim to the kitchen and gave it a new carpet of water, splattering around; Iris hit it with a green bolt of lightning and every electric device in the kitchen died with a whimper, the two backing away and deeper into the living room.
Besides and to her left, Iris felt a vague twitch of the television, and tendrils of wires sprung out from behind the television and shot towards her; she hit them with a crescent of wind that cleaved each stubborn cables' head from its neck, yet more regenerated and advanced upon her, a writhing mass of black her wind could only barely cut down; behind, she felt Metamorph close against her as more cables shot towards them -
- Suki shot a glob of web into it, but one cable shot forward and sacrificed itself to catch it high, the rest advancing unscathed and lashing close; inch by inch, the pressure of their advanced forces Iris & Suki further back against the wall, the wooden jaws of the home's wall beginning to open for them -
- but the next scene was instant. Suki spat another unfurled web over the cables that sailed overhead and missed them completely, but a fist of accelerated pressure slammed it hard into the mass of cables, hands of wind wrapping & tying them up as tightly as Iris did Olivia; many cables flailed yet fell beneath the web of bondage, and as they attempted one final thrust at woman & demon -
- a wall of lava shot up ahead and into the infernal wall went the cables; a blaze shot through the pig-flesh coated cables and consumed the cables at ten-fold more potency, mass of black writhing & dying in charred bits ahead; Kairos temporarily decayed all oxygen in the area and gave the blaze crumbs of oxygen to follow to the other side of the room as Iris & Suki rushed away, out of the living room into the bedroom behind.
Turning as she passed the door, Iris laughed as she saw Suki needing to crouch to not hit her head on the doorframe; a burning cable shot for Suki's leg, but Iris's light intensified and cast a shadow behind herself that Suki shadowstepped into, a door of obsidian slamming up into the cable and crushing it alive, the rest of those charred invaders regenerating beyond yet unable to breach through yet.
The women were in the bedroom now, no entrance but for the one they had just closed and one exit that led deeper within the home. It was free of electronics but for lamps that spits of Suki's acid could dissolve. She has just hocked one into the last lamp when a wooden hand formed in the wall and caught the glob, then spun rapidly and churned the acid back upon the woman in thin streams; but the next scene was instant.
Iris shouted for Suki to hit the ground and they both ducked, Kairos returning Iris's right-hand drill to her; she shot it hyper-accelerated into the streams and sprinkled acid all over the walls, Kairos' strand keeping it hovering & spinning, repaired & revolving as Suki spat more acid into it, again & again as the walls of the home began to melt around them. Groundbound yet glancing back, Iris saw a spot of the outside world open in the southern wall; she hit it with a gust of lava that sent another blaze shooting through the walls, acid & fire melding, attritioning against the home's regenerations, holes yawning open underneath the combination of superheat & supercorrosive liquid -
- until a rush of cold wind flooded into the room and dulled the blaze, acid falling to the ground in frozen droplets; Iris knew it was from the kitchen's freezer as a subzero chill claimed the room, temperature still lowering by the second, ice beginning to slash at their cheeks. She heard her obsidian door grow brittle in the sudden winter and shatter, more cables slithering towards them; a wave of lava washed over them but the temperature chilled it brittle, woman & demon grunting as they tried to peel their stuck skin off the floor, their mouths barely able to move from their slashed lips.
The temperature fell again and no longer could Iris sustain her heat-given light, plunging the room into darkness as she focused on keeping her & Suki's breaths able to move from their mouths. Above, she saw a bulb of light and nearly reacted to it before she realized what it was: the lure of an anglerfish sprouting from Suki's prehensile tail, barely moving in the frozen chill, and as a maw opened in the ceiling & chewed it apart -
- the sound of a home in mortal agony came moments later as the termites contained within the lure hatched & swarmed within the ceiling's intestines, devouring a clear hole through the ceiling; the warm air of the outside world slowly pulled away the cold and mixed with the frozen hell below, and a simple acceleration of physics caused the outside warmth to pull out the inner cold like a trepanation drains fluid from a human skull. Iris & Suki standing once more, Iris shouted: "-hole below!"
What termites were left above swarmed down to Suki and re-coalesced into her wounded tail, the demon's mouth aiming her acid down and drilling into the floor, a swarm of her tail-termites following and ripping, tearing, devouring through the home's foundation, until a single spot in the floor opened & Iris could seep Kairos out of the host's aura into the dirt below -
- and the next scene was instant. She shouted for Meteorology's half and stomped down: a terrible shock went through the home as an earthquake began below, fissures & fault lines & jagged earth jutting out below, further impaling through the home as the earth quavered, an aura of wind keeping the women safe & midair but forced to follow the home's sideways collapse -
- but the house caught itself and budged back again such, even as the earthquake threatened to swallow it into the mantle of the earth; Iris grunted, then commanded Suki to open a hole in the ceiling with her termites once more; once more, Kairos' seeped into the world above and a heavy hurricane began overhead, rain & wind ripping at the roof above as the earthquake still lingered below, dual-pronged weather beginning to open up the walls of the home -
"- HOST!" shouted Suki and Iris turned; she saw a spot of something moving within the walls and hit it with a green bolt of lightning; still it writhed, and she shouted for Suki to send her termites into it; she did so, and another three bolts of green lightning to whatever it was paused the home entirely, leaving it to begin its collapse around them, until Kairos held up its pillars and reverted it back to glory yet with no life further animating the home.
For a minute Iris & Suki checked if any further attack would occur. Whatever Iris had seen in the wall was covered from sight now, and she tentatively sliced the wall open to check what she had seen. It was a small corpse that had been crunched into an amalgamation of organic & not, with cords of skin that grew along the walls until the mycelium of wood and flesh met and leapt into a single shape. She saw no colony nor heart within it, yet as Kairos gazed its autopsy, she knew it had died 29 days ago, a fact she decided not to tell Suki. Her hand touched, in passing, a single cord of skin that seemed still tethered as if to some invisible cross, until with a rush of lava she buried this & all before.