xp_logs | Red God: Achebe

Sometimes you need to split up, even when you're lost in a world gone crazy.

The path spools out before them, seemingly endless. Nothing seems properly linear. It is as if someone has taken all the pieces of Wakanda and throw them together into a jumble that should be unrecognizable, but isn't. Undisciplined minds are at the root of this, Nathan reflects. Minds that have never experienced this level of existence before. As if you're an old pro, a dry voice at the back of his mind points out. He only wishes it wasn't telling the truth.

But inexperienced or not, it is he who first hears the laughing - dry, wild cackling. An old man's voice, he thinks, stopping, and something in the wind suggests... hostility. I think we have company, he says. Possibly not of the kind we like.

But perhaps they might know what is going on. Ororo isn't convinced of this fact, especially from the sounds of the hysterical laughter, but subscribes to optimism anyway.

The variations in the landscape suddenly leave Jean feeling like she could trip over intent; there are practically screaming neon signs 'someone did this!' all around. The crowds of Wakandans they'd encountered previously had all stumbled upon a collective understanding of the world which allowed them to function, giving Jean solid ground upon which to walk, but here is something different, something new. I think they think they do, she says, looking up at the sky as it shifts and tears between weather patterns and time of day, always dominated by the fire. And maybe that's what matters.

Movement. Something scuttles across the path in front of them, like a thousand scorpion. Nathan flinches at the sharpness, the painful edges of the presence that scrapes across his mind. More laughter, taunting now. He reacts instinctively, giving in to the flash of anger the mockery provokes. Reaching out, he yanks, and a scrawny old man, symbols painted on his body, tumbles back onto the path.

The stranger scrambles back to his feet right away, eyes bulging. Glowing. Stop me in my travels, will you? he half-shrieks at Nathan, waving the staff he carries threateningly. His words are not English, but yet are somehow comprehensible. Interlopers need not wait to die! He looks up at the fire in the sky, and bursts out in gleeful laughter.

Jean frowns at the little man, confused for a moment because there are two of him. The scrawny one laughing maniacally hardly seems a threat, but the other one seems to loom over them, promising pain and retribution for slights she doesn't remember having caused. Following his gaze she considers the comet again, wondering if it has decided what it wants to mean. You're not what you think you are, she tells the man, looking back at him. Funny, that; the thinking makes it so, and you've the power to back it up. But not the sense to know when not to try.

There is a buzzing in Ororo's ears as the sky puckers and tears; she can barely concentrate on the words passing between her companions and the man they have encountered. She feels anger and disgust - how can he do this? Doesn't he know the consequences?

Why are you helping him? she demands to know, the words harsh in her throat. What can it gain you to tear the world like this? What does he want with a world in pain?

The world should feel pain, the little man decrees, and the light in his eyes is that of a fanatic. Our people have strayed! Fallen into shadow, and in his words, there is the image of a great black cat, snarling in the darkness. A panther. Sekhmet will bring the light! Force the choice. And if they choose wrong, why, then it all ends in fire!

Without warning, Nathan lunges at the little man, who scuttles back, hissing. Convert or face death from above? Nathan demands contemptuously. That's not a choice, you little bastard. What gives you the right?

I am Achebe! is the defiant answer. The world begins to twist and warp around the little man, and the hissing isn't coming from him this time. There are snakes flowing out of empty air around him, snakes and scorpions, a black tide of death. And you - none of you are meant to be here!

Layers of meaning exist, not all of which are controlled by you, little man, Jean says, scowling slightly, and feeling a bit queasy as he re-writes the world too quickly for her to follow, not with all these other people around. It doesn't mesh.

The vermin are a black river, flowing around them, engulfing the path with venomous intent. Ororo shudders. Tell us where he is, then, and we will show him why we are here. Or does he hide behind his minion still?

His servant! Achebe proclaims proudly, eyes blazing. His loyal servant, his right hand...

His cracked and really fucking annoying pet blowhard, Nathan growls, the light around him glowing fiercely gold. He is only realizing now how badly he wants a target.

Achebe points his staff at the bigger man, threatening. I give you all one chance, he intones. Turn aside. Leave the king to be lost in his own shadows - leave this land! He laughed, the cackle like fingers on a chalkboard. If you run as fast as you can, you may reach the borderlands before the end.

He turns, vanishes into the dark again. The snakes and scorpions melt back into the earth, become plants and rocks. Harmless.

Well, Nathan says, to hell with him. The glow around him fades, if only slightly. I say we keep looking for T'Challa. He's clearly tied up in this somehow. Lost in shadow, Nathan thinks, and the anger swells. Maybe literally.

Seeing two things in one place is giving Jean a headache; she sees the shadows and obscurity Achebe laid over the ground through Nathan and Ororo's eyes, yet also sees the path he took, picked out in fire and bright lights of pain, his own twisted perception. Choices have to be made; she can accept her companion's view, let the path fade out of existence, or she can take Achebe's, let him dictate the world she sees for the chance to stop him.

Sighing, she steps forward and in setting even just one foot on Achebe's path seems to shift away from the others. Little man needs dealing with, she says, glancing back at the other two. Thinks fire and life incarnate are toys, going to get burned if he's not stopped.

Ororo knows that where Jean is going is not for her to follow - she sees no path there, only darkness. We will continue on, then. Beware the Lion.

Jean nods. You as well. Nate, be careful.

Let's all be careful. No falling down rabbit holes.