King Blood sounded quite surprised, “You can do something against it? Really? I was just asking as a joke.”
“Get me a video feed sent to my phone,” Ethan replied.
“I’ll send you a link to a live streamer who was on a hike in the region.” A few seconds later Ethan felt his phone vibrate and clicked the feed.
“Now that I see the location – Heaven’s Gate.” He stepped through the golden portal and appeared across the world – just in front of the camera. The portal snapped shut behind him. Putting the phone into the armored container hidden behind the greave, he looked back at the camera.
The streamer: a young woman who was dressed in yoga pants not suitable for hiking, let out a gasp, “Holy shit! An actual hero? You’re that Radiance guy.” There were other tourists who turned their phones to him.
Ethan looked back down to the volcano’s caldera. He could see the slight pulsation of the earth, the gentle bubbling underneath as it bucked up. “You should get out of here,” he said to the woman and the arrayed crowd.
She let out a sigh, “Even if I ran, I wouldn’t get away. Might as well get my minute of fame!”
Dumb. At least try and run. But its your funeral, he thought. He activated Leap of Faith warped close to the edge of the bubbling and bucking earth. “Nobilis, can I increase the size of Heaven’s Gate’s aperture?”
Yes. That is a Modifier.
-----
[New Ability Modifier: (Increased Size)]
[Effect: The user may increase the size of an Ability by expending more energy.]
-----
Ethan glanced up into the sky and could see the still visible moon far off in the sky. And I just have to be able to see a location. He looked up to the woman on the edge of the caldera with other tourists who were now recording. I just have to go for it.
“Heaven’s Gate,” he muttered, pouring all of his available energy into the Ability.
Above the center of the caldera, a pinprick of light manifested, then spread outward as the portal opened horizontally – facing the ground. He had placed the destination for the portal on the moon’s surface – and to his shock and mild satisfaction, he did not see the rush of air billowing past him as the vacuum of space surged out. Looks like the portal won’t let things through that I don’t want it to, he thought with delight.
I could have told you that, Nobilis stated, sounding chuffed. Good use of an Ability though. Now you just need to instigate the eruption from afar.
Ethan was weak-legged already, and he staggered to the edge of the caldera. I’m all ears if you have an idea.
An explosion of sufficient size would do the trick – but that is not within your capabilities.
Ethan sighed, “Should’ve thought it through a bit more,” he muttered. He began to turn to look back at the crowd when the ground shook, he was flung forward, and he felt an enormous shockwave of heat that heated the armor encasing him to a quite uncomfortable temperature. Not cooking him alive, but slowly baking him like an oven roasting a chicken.
He turned around and let out a whoop of excitement as he saw his plan had worked perfectly. The eruption had surged up and right into the portal. As he scrabbled up the caldera to get further from the origin point, he saw the surging magma, gas, and other debris shoot up into the portal. Spinning around, he looked up into the sky and saw, on the surface of the moon, a geyser of magma that rapidly cooled before being contained by the orbit. Only visible thanks to his Holy Sight.
He crawled his way out of the caldera, and when he reached the top he was not greeted with cheers and joyous exclamations. Instead, he was greeted with horror. Charred corpses that had been blown back down the cliff, strewn all about. He averted his eyes back to the caldera and swallowed down the bile he felt. I did the best I could, he thought.
The heat was still intense, but a few minutes of leaving the portal and he could see the magma slowly bubbling. The explosive danger of the massive explosion was negated, and he let the portal fade as the bubbling magma slowly worked its way up out of the ground to gradually fill the caldera. He had no clue if it would continue to fill and overflow, eventually running down the mountain – but the major crisis was averted.
He began down the mountain, still exhausted, and once the heat had faded he pulled his phone out and called King Blood. “It’s done. Some observers died, but I prevented the explosive eruption.”
“I saw the gist of it. Where’d that portal go to?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
“The moon,” Ethan replied nonchalantly.
“The…the fucking moon?!”
“Yeah,” Ethan replied.
“Does that fucking thing have a range limit?”
Good question. Nobilis?
Nope. As long as you can see it, you can make a portal there.
“Nope, no range limit as long as I can see the destination.”
King Blood spoke rapidly, “This is incredible! I’m going to get some space agencies in touch with you. Exploration of space is possible now! You can just open portals-”
“No!” Ethan shouted. He quieted down and calmed, but the words of The Entity raced through his head. “No…we can’t risk going to the stars yet.”
“…Why?”
“I cannot say. The Entity restricts it.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
That seemed to shut King Blood up entirely as his voice came through terse and professional. “Understood. Whatever It told you…well, we’ll put space exploration on the side, for now. Good job stopping the eruption. Shame about the bystanders – but they were doomed anyways.”
Unless I had warped them all to safety, Ethan thought as he kicked himself for not just opening a Heaven’s Gate down the mountain for them to run through. But then I might not have had enough energy to cover the whole blast area. He had a very real situation that he had just dealt with that tackled the same conundrum as his conversation with The Entity had revealed – he had just served the greater good over the needs of the few.
It made him sick to his stomach, but he knew that he had made a choice and would have to live with it. The one comfort in that moment was that he had seen the gates of judgement before being yanked back when he had died – he knew they were going on to something after death.
Finding a rock that looked decently comfortable, he sat down as he caught his breath and let his energy refill. The phone was still in his hand, though the call had ended already. It began buzzing again, and when he answered he was greeted by a female voice. “This is The Coordinate. I work with the IRE.”
“Radiance,” Ethan muttered sullenly.
“This is good moment to talk?”
“Might as well. I’m just sitting here waiting on energy."
The voice sounded…relieved. “Good to know.” There was a clacking sound in the background. “I run the Imbued Database for the IRE. We’re logging down known Imbued, their powers, and significant events. A part historical record, part reference database. The internal view is going to be for IRE only; so that we can quickly dispatch the appropriately powered person to an incident that they are best suited to help solve. The external view – which you may have seen – has mostly fan-facing information.”
Ethan stood up and paced as he talked, a habit he had picked up from his father who used to do the same on business calls in their San Francisco apartment. “Let me guess – you want to know what I can do.”
“That’s right. It is all kept secure with my Curator. No way another Imbued can access it without my permission. This line is totally secure, by the way. My power has to do with control over communications networks - no way someone is hacking in or listening to us."
“Even Cheat Code is kept out?”
“Even him,” the voice replied confidently.
Ethan tapped the mute button, “Nobilis, is that right?”
I know their Curator. Coordinator, confusingly enough. A right proper Curator who is always true to their word. I think they are trustworthy – and if you want to help fix the world, being on-hand for the appropriate emergency seems wise.
“Very well,” Ethan said as he unmuted and replied. “What do you want to know?”
He spent the next hour going over his various encounters and describing what he did. Nobilis would put information screens in his vision as he spoke, so that the data was perfectly curated and logged in the most efficient manner possible.
The Coordinate spoke when Ethan had finished, “Quite versatile. I would have never thought that a holy inspired-by-MMORPG based power set would include warping or portals.”
“That’s a spell from the game,” Ethan replied as he felt his energy almost full up once more. “It is how you would return home with the group in tow.”
There was more clacking and then a satisfied response, “Good. Thanks for the info, Radiance. It’s been a pleasure. With this, I’ll have a better idea of your capabilities – or possible new Abilities, even – and can direct you to incidents. Thanks for dealing with the volcano thing. We had another person en route but they would not be able to stop it – only mitigate the ash cloud.”
“Well, happy I got here in time.”
“Indeed. Take care. I’ll be in touch!” the phone went silent.
Ethan put it away and used Heaven’s Gate to return to the tower overlooking Los Angeles. The morning sun was in the sky, and he sighed as his phone rang again. “Radiance,” he stated with a sigh.
“Rough morning?” Aaron Restor, the reporter who Ethan had spoken with, asked.
“Kind of. Stopped a volcanic eruption in…Italy, I think? Somewhere in the Mediterranean.”
Aaron seemed lost for words for a few seconds, “Holy shit! The video is…well, it goes white, but I get the gist of what you did. Great job.” The voice shifted to one of concern, “I’ve been doing soul searching since we talked, and I gotta say…I’m freaking out. You confirmed the existence of something beyond death. I talked to my old pastor – Presbyterian – and he wants to talk.”
Ethan groaned audibly, “I don’t think confirming the existence of an afterlife and judgement is going to help anything right now. People are going to begin fighting over whose religion is right, whose is wrong, which one to follow to get judged favorably…it’s too much.” He was almost pleading at this point, “I just want to be a local hero. Los Angeles. Stop bad guys, protect people, go heal and fix up the world when I can.” He shook his head and sat on the edge of the building. “It’s too much at once.”
Aaron was persistent, “But if you could just talk to people-”
“I said no,” Ethan replied firmly. “I already got a ton of new information this morning that I cannot share with anyone, and let’s just say it shattered my world view. Just…if you want my exclusive interviews to keep going, cut this shit out.”
Aaron sighed, but the business mindset seemed to win out over his qualms regarding Ethan’s reluctance to speak to religions about the existence of judgement after death. “I get it. Fine. I’ll drop it. But I’m telling you, word is already spreading online.”
“Yeah,” Ethan replied as he felt a coil of tension in his chest, “People think I’m the Second Coming.”
“You…” Aaron let out an exasperated groan. “Dude, you need to really pay attention to forums more! There’s a ton of stirrings about religious revivals. Heck, some people are even starting a church devoted to you.”
Ethan was speechless. They…they want to worship me? It made sense. He had come back from death, could heal the masses, was smiting evil doers…and given his conversation with The Entity, he could use that to his advantage. Not just build up his reputation as a hero, Radiance, who fights for what is right…but build up a religious fervor behind his mission, his goals, to build up support for eventually…
Eventually what? he thought. The Entity gave me the go-ahead to unite the world behind myself…is this the way to do it? Embrace the ideologue and religious fervor. The other route is to just keep building up my reputation across the world by being a hero, and maybe use the IRE as a means of instilling control in a more diplomatic way.
No matter how he spun it in his head, he knew that he had to make a choice regarding the religious angle. “I’ll let you know,” Ethan said as he hung up and let out a deep breath.
I see several paths before you, Nobilis stated. I will present them in a format you are familiar with.
“What do you-”
Ethan was cut off as a vision appeared in his eyes. A screen, gold on black, just like he had seen when he had first gained his powers, and when new Abilities or Sub-Abilities appeared.
-----
[Mission: Save the world from itself.]
[Path 1 – The Hero. Build up your reputation as Radiance as a beacon for good. Become the ideal hero that people look up to and be the icon others measure themselves against.]
[Path 2 – The Savior. Build a religious following and convert the world to your ideology. Become the perceived deity of the world and bring all under your control through fervor.]
-----
“Path one is sort of like being Superman,” Ethan commented. “Being the beacon of hope and justice…but the man of steel never actually united the world until he took it over.”
A fair observation. But the benefit to that path is it lets you do what you described you desire – be a hero and help people. It definitely would work with being alongside the IRE and other Imbued of a heroic bent. I believe…in your pop culture, it would be-
“Like the Justice League,” Ethan concluded. “Yeah, I was thinking that, too. The Savior path seems like it sets me up as the God-Emperor of Mankind from 40k. Which would be great for bringing everyone together…minus the grimdark aspects like corpse starch.”
The downside to that Path is that you will have many opponents - Imbued - who will wish to stop you. However, converting the masses should be easy given your “miracles” you can perform.
Ethan pondered the two options before him. The Paths presented in this screen. “Are there other options?”
Which Path should Ethan take?
