Idea no longer speaks to us.
Colossus is nothing but a husk.
This is not our home.
This is Hell.

A set of atramentous eyes broke open. In that moment, Amphiprioninae witnessed all of everything but could see nothing. Val’garan space was void of light. Without much forethought, he instinctively knew it was time to move again. Megalodon had to be awakened.

No longer could he sense life in his home world. Sal’chazzar was gone, Behemoth had been sapped dry and The Cataclysm were absent. Colossus was murdered, all on Disciple’s watch. He had naively entrusted a power other than their own, and thus, the entire race was vagabonded. He was never fit to lead. Without the guidance of Idea the Val’gara were…weak. Their fate presently rested in the hands of a devilish fiend, Singar. He took only what he was allowed to but as vulnerable as they were currently, the demon still threaded murky waters. His repugnant aura would not be forgotten by the few that could seriously harm him.

Megalodon crawled out the half eaten carcass of a dreadnaught. His body, stained in blood, reeked of rotten odors. Considering what was at stake, his posture was rather composed. Amphiprioninae on the other hand vortexed around his bowl rapidly. Megalodon sensed a rage that even surpassed his own and in respect, he abided to his symbiotic partner’s will.

Despite Singar being long gone the words of the demon rang in the clownfish’s head.

"Hidden in the realm of the God of Light... Hidden on a world where science has run mad... You have no choice but to trust me."

“No, Fuck you, Fuck Hellion, Fuck Thane, and FUCK DISCIPLE! WE AS A RACE ARE NOT SUBMISSIVE. WE ARE THE FORCE IN THE UNIVERSE THAT WILL ASSIMILATE ALL THAT IS!”

Naturally, Disciple sensed the discontent in the herald but he wouldn’t feel alarmed until he felt tremors all throughout. Enraged, Amphiprioninae tapped into a power the opposing herald was unaware of. It was profound and caused the entirety of its mother’s husk to rumble. By all accounts should Colossus have been dead but here it was, moving. In combination, they actually possessed the ability to manipulate seismic energies and its home was no exception. Megalodon could pull Colossus in its entirety into one solid mass but that was not the lone goal. They used it as a means to distribute its aura in hopes of defibrillating the planet. The result was something no one could have foreseen. It was the catalyst that spurred a measure Colossus could naturally carry out, even in death.

In an instant, a sensation overtook Disciple’s body...

He knew he was in danger. Instantly in retaliation, Megalodon felt the opposing herald attempt to probe his and his partners mind.

“I am the will of Colossus, do not act foolishly. You have all the reason to be angry at first glance but my decision will only benefit us, Indeed!”

His attempts at persuasion went on deaf ears as Amphiprioninae was very much capable of deflecting his pheromones. The symbiotic duo was hell bent on reviving its mother and nothing could stop them. Aware of this, Disciple attempted to stop them from manipulating Colossus by force.

“You two of all Heralds will not defy me.”

Immediately he attempted to exert his dominance of them and It became a power struggle of psionic juggernauts with neither giving leeway to the other. In this current state of rage Amphiprioninae’s psychic prowess evolved far beyond what Disciple was capable of overtaking. Taken aback by the resistance, he became blinded to the closest threat to him, and because of this, his efforts of coercion were short lived. A seemingly infinite number of fleshly limbs erupted and weaved their way from Colossus from every conceivable angle ensnaring him. Once binded, he was dragged to the depths of the once sundered mass of its Mother and submerged temporarily in its expanse of flesh. From there he could hear another voice speaking to him.

“I am the only true interpreter of Colossus…Of Idea.”

Was it the planet speaking to him itself? Who else could claim such a thing?

It appeared his home turned against him but that wasn’t entirely the truth. It wasn’t exactly his mother. Physically it was, but its soul was long gone. What was reanimated to his dread before him was the last evolutionary measure of Colossus to live on. This process could only be spurred by the efforts of select heralds. Amphiprioninae was the only present who could so such and he and Megalodon did by instinct.

All of the remaining bioforce and potential mental prowess of every unborn creature in Colossus pooled into a single identity. It merged not only each creature’s mass but parts of the planet itself, forming someone who unlike Disciple was fit to represent the true will of Colossus in its current absence. Caorthannach broke the shell of Colossus like an egg, sending ripples throughout the galaxy and thus a massive creature was born. She was the final product of the Val’gara home world but was not fated to be the last as a new home was to be fostered.

Roughly, her mass was on par if not larger currently larger than Brobdingnag even though the bulk of her body remained coiled. Megalodon had been tossed aside in her eruption from the crust but remained close enough to watch the phenomenon take place. Her body stretched long enough to house a million individual limbs. A colossal chelae-like extension unfurled from her and lifted the shark herald to her illuminating eyes. At the pace in which he was elevated, his skin began to burn and defensive measures were taken in a similar manner to when he had torpedoed through space.

Despite his large frame Megalodon was only a speck in comparison but was seen and handled with precision. He was the first Herald she directly engaged with and her words left both symbiotic partners astonished.

“Satisfactory.”

Somewhat agape, not only Amphiprioninae, but Megalodon could not believe what he had heard. Caorthannach spoke with the wisdom of all that was Colossus. Considering much of her physical makeup was of the same cells it was no surprise she could recollect the events of her Mother’s life. With that, she understood she was in the right to scold many of the Heralds and so she would starting with Megalodon.

“It was not your decision but my existence is merely the product of your failure. None of you are without fault. Shame has been brought upon us and I am filled with wrath. Much of my nature is similar to mothers. I cannot will myself to destroy you but I will discipline many, beginning with my predecessor.”

Brought to Megalodon’s vision was the Herald he recently waged in psychic warfare with, immobilized by Caorthannach’s psychic aptitude. Disciple was dwarfed in comparison. As large as she was the smugness of her character was at full exhibition when she addressed him.

“Disciple, must I remind you of your sins or should I assume you already know the repercussions of garnering the soul of Mother to an external force? So irresponsible. Can you grasp why this endangers us as a race? Singar has corrupted you but you can atone. You were not the first to stray so you are not entirely at fault. Even as we speak, Brobdingnag is no longer aligned with us. The Sounder has been shamelessly detained and he and Anathemas whereabouts are unknown. Hellion revolted and died dishonorably short after. Most importantly, The Stalker is in the same position as you, having disgraced our home.”

Unwavering, Disciple defended his actions. He understood what he was up against and was prepared to debate, however, he also understood she did not appear on accident.

“What I did was justified through the will of Colossus. She will live now. It is just no longer is entirely dependent on us.”

Having said what she desired, Caorthannach was not even remotely interested in his response. She did not need him. Her connection to Colossus was stronger than any Herald ever conceived and unsurprisingly she felt superior because of it. She could even sense the soul of her mother at this very moment. However, despite her profound connection to the soul, she could not pinpoint the exact location. It was being obstructed by an external force that in any other case would have made it completely undetectable.

In response, she separated Megalodon and Disciple widely, sentencing them to two different fates. She dropped the shark and instantaneously struck him, forcefully propelling him through space, warping him to interrogate the nearest Herald she sensed. This brought him to the atmosphere of Soran above Liaita. On arrival, Megalodon released a roar that not only announced his arrival but had apparent effects on the weather as well. A massive unannounced storm of heavy rains developed over the entire continent with no signs of easing up. Slowly he’d descend.

As for Disciple…

He wasn’t as fortunate to get the opportunity to right his wrongs, at least not now. All that was remaining of Colossus that did not merge with Caorthannach clung to him, irresistibly cocooning his frame and entrapping him in a three-time sized Jupiter prison of extremely dense flesh manipulated by her to resist and suppress his abilities.

“I have made my decision; here you will keep Mother’s seat warm, alone.”

Afterward, she’d swim off past Glaceria and into the darkness. Where she went was much of a mystery to everyone, though she knew.

The amphibian Herald's arrival on Soran did not go unnoticed. His wrathful roar traveled across the entire continent, heard by the Niraans who dwelt on Liaita's east coast, vibrated glass wings of fairies, the ruffled the fur of elves, and scattered forest nymphs who hovered over the mountains near the Gates of Doloran, reached west where it resonated within the scales of great and powerful dragons. The great serpents of rock and metal called Sarach surfaced from the frozen desert, their dorsal towers flashing with white light before it was converted into an intense aura, radiating from their backs as massive blue flames that were slightly transparent. Its cousin Agron reacted similarly, the entire desert shifting, quaking, the dunes undulating like ocean tides as the twin spirits began to rage with ethereal ferocity, triggered by the new presence.

Amphriprioninae and his partner Megalodon sought retribution against Singar for his actions on Colossus. Waking up all of Liaita by unleashing a continental scream was definitely not the right way to go about it. The Vesuvian Virus' presence within the Entropic Passages invoked fear in their minds, the gradual rise in power of the virus allowing it to transform into a great and terrible storm chilled them to their cores, and the portal in the sky which emanated a dastardly aura not-yet-seen before caused them to feel fright that had not been felt since the invasion of the Aptosites hundreds of years ago.

The portal had deposited a rock of unimaginable size and frigid temperature right ontop of the Lake of Flesh, freezing the surface solid. This strange, unknown rock which was propped up on the hand of a severed deity exuded a feeling of pure ominousness in the minds of those who viewed it, conjuring images of a great battle that was waged between beings who resembling a cross between men and birds. The fall of those beings, the agonizing brutality which was emitted through their screams, and undeniably distinct sensation of treachery, as if the ones who viewed the rock alongside them might reach out and slit their throats.

Megalodon's loud, obnoxious bellowing did nothing except scare the living daylights out of Liaita's inhabitants.

As the Sharkborg and his partner continued to descend, it might have noticed the rain within its immediate area suddenly cease falling, as if defying gravity. Without warning the droplets evaporated, leaving naught but a dense fog that was rapidly expanding in area, obscuring Megalodon and Amphriprioninae's sight and reducing their visual radius down to a minimum. Attempting to to locate the source of the phenomenon by psychic means would be useless, for it would ensnare those minute pulses of psychoelectric energy the moment they were released, slowing them to a halt before they could make it to Liata's surface.

The Herald would have to find a means of reaching Singar using strictly its physical senses, and if it didn't hurry up, soon the Fog would infiltrate its nose, mouth and gills, wherein it would then slow the very neurons within both their brains to a complete and utter halt. Unbeknownst to the pair this was just Corruptor's way of greeting them, preferring not to get involved in a direct combative confrontation unless it was absolutely required of him to do so, and ontop of that he had a Fallen Angel to speak with.

In the meantime, a giant aperture formed inside the Fog granting sight to what was still left of the rainstorm. From within that aperture two massive, luminous crimson eyes embedded deep within a horned, rocky facade resembling a two mile long snake slithering through the hole in the Fog, its dorsal towers alight with the very same colorful energy crackling up and down the colossal structures. The beast was not alone though, for encircling its entire body was a dense cloud of dust, the individual particulates composing the living plume conducting what appeared to be the very same blue flames that had shown themselves in Liaita's northern desert.

The beast came ever closer to Megalodon the Fog parting around its form, its jaw opening up as the crimson light drained from the towers on its back, forming a dense sphere within its mouth, the very same occurring at its tail end. Then, without warning, the sphere at the rear detonated, propelling Sarach and Agron the latter of whom's body had been reduced to dust in order to serve as a shield through which to protect the serpent. The sphere which it held in its mouth fired a thickly concentrated beam of ether which bore a strange resemblance to liquid as it undulated across the sky on a direct course for the Sharkborg, and would surely devastate he and his Clownfish and his partner if it hit.

The sphere of crimson ether superheated the air as it shot across the sky, vaporizing raindrops along its path and leaving a thin veil of quickly dissipating steam in its wake. In his bid to retake Soran, to punish Singar for his alleged crimes - to engage in what most certainly might be a most-brutal interrogation session with the Stalker - the Herald and his clownfish companion failed to move themselves out of harm's way. Furthermore they didn't even seem to make an attempt at raising a defense of ANY kind to protect themselves from the destructive attack launched at them by the two of Soran's most notorious cousins.

Just before impact, another small aperture formed within the cloud, and a voice could be heard speaking in perfect synchronicity with the serpent's beam. To those who were psychically empowered, a stream of blue psionic energy could be seen fusing with the beam, merging with it and causing its bloody color to shift toward becoming a deep, magical purple.

Then it hit.

Sarach's ether-beam smashed into Megalodon, at first simply pushing the sharkborg back, but as it felt resistance from the Herald struggling against it. The beam split apart as a natural consequence of meeting the Herald head-on, branching out into multiple passing tendrils, going up, over, and around the amphibian monstrosity, only to merge back fuse back together into a single blast, trapping the beast inside. "If you must roar, then roar with vigor so that your vocal chords might tear, and so that I might rip and pluck those noisy things from your gullet and hang you by them." Singar's psychic voice had merged with Sarach's attack, easily breaching the walls of the cyborg's mind as well as Amphriprioninae's. Within second's the clownfish's bowl suffered a fracture, not shattering it outright, but suffering more than enough damage to allow Amph to sense the pressure inside the glass go down by just a fraction of a pascal as streams of water slipped out through the cracks.

Megalodon suffered a far more direct and severe consequence. The metal composing its cybernetic arm superheated as the ether washed over it, the joints in its organic flesh suffering immediate burns that would inflict grievous nerve damage to the muscles he utilized to move his left shoulder. Worse was that as the beam traveled up and passed over his head, it seared his jawline, fused a small portion of his gills together, and burnt the insides of the shark's nostrils, screwing with its sense of smell. Tracking the location of the Stalker by scent would no longer be an easy task requiring minimal effort - certainly possible given the Sharkborg's tenacity and ravenous tendencies - but it would most assuredly be transformed into a mission of much greater difficulty.

Ultimately, by the time the ether-beam scattered and was absorbed into the Midnight Fog, Megalodon and Amph were left a steaming as a steaming-hot trio of fish, fish, and glowing red metal parts, that had shockingly only been cooked to medium rare. If through their lack of appropriate combat maneuvers, the aquatic pair continued taking reckless hits, it would no longer be just a small detriment to their success, they wouldn't even make through the Fog, the hole of which had been opened to accommodate Singar's telepathic message through now closing back, denying them so much as a glance at what had been transpiring on Liaita's surface.

"Hurry up, wretched Herald of your failing and pathetic race." Projected the Corruptor, his words incisive, and his tone a combination of disgust and genuine irritation.

Capriciously, he added yet another scathing, spitting comment, as was utterly befitting of a bastard like Singar. "I am not worthy of seeing my time wasted on watching your ridiculously, exceptionally stupendous ineptitude and careless disregard for the other occupants of this world, whose rage you are not even competent enough to evade."

He wondered how deep those words cut into the Val'garan, if he had laced his words with enough venom, or should he try to extrapolate Amphroprininae's inability to protect its partner from further humiliation by Agron and Sarach by insulting that aspect of its intelligence?

Too much effort for a simple clownfish..., he thought, observing the battle through the rocky duo's eyes as it passed Megalodon overhead, its spiked, ethereally charged tail came in low for a brutal, hooking that would pulverize and drag the Sharkborg across the foggy sky should it smash into him.

The Lake of Flesh

Standing atop the massive, recently thawed-out boulder that was Cocytus, Singar looked up at the sky with his dark-indigo eyes, his arms crossed as he witnessed the first sign of a losing battle, a vague grin of knowing stretching across his pale face. For a moment he stared down at the lake of flesh which was a mosaic of ice mixed with strands of muscle fiber, undeveloped organs, and arthropod parts. Occasionally they drifted toward the rock, harmlessly bumping up against it, though more-often-than not the little islands bumped into each other instead, for there had been hardly any space between them as is.

Behind him the Vesuvian Storm boomed as it always had, the clouds of assimilation churning with the ever expanding Midnight Fog which achieved greater mass and volume by the second, as Singar's hydrokinesis converted the rain water into more fog that continue to consume all the available air-space, and soon Liaita would be under full control of the Collector's will.

Beneath the floating islands, where the lake of flesh was still warm, a thought had been reborn, a hunter's hunger had been revived, and a monster's need to feed became active once again, but its desire to kill still needed room to grow.

It didn't stop the islands from suddenly rising as if in reaction to the Herald's primitive growling, which seemed to elicit an insidious chuckle from deep within the cavernous rock that Singar was perched on.

"You'll thank me once you've fully recovered, Thane."

Animosity was in the air. The disdain for Megalodon on Soran was fiery and blatant. The retaliation effort only added gasoline to the fire. The ethereal beam blitzing through the sky only served as the ultimate catalyst.

The longer the beam concentrated the whiter the shark’s eyes appeared, the coarser his scales were, the further his veins bulged, the more defined his muscles became. Where it was clear that he was in pain, initially it would have an opposing effect than anyone could have possibly anticipated.

As extensions of energy entrapped the beast, Amphiprioninae remained rather calm, nefariously in anticipation of something. Having had successfully fend off The Disciple, the fish was more than prepared to deflect Singar’s words at the ‘door’ with his natural corrosive psychic barrier. The shark, however, was affected immediately and through he resisted the beam, midnight fog and Singars voice all at once he was taking crippling amounts of stress.

The fog was beginning to affect him but it wasn’t the end. As bad as the situation may have looked, this all served a purpose. Amphiprioninae used Megalodon’s highly resistant body to analyze the supernatural forces affecting him in as minuscule of detail as cell by cell. He did this simultaneously as if it were happening to him. By symbiotic nature, he could sense and analyze every aspect of his partner including the mind, body, and soul. With this, he identified and infiltrated what was right in front of him.

And there it was…Direct traces to Singars life energy and mind. The second Singar began lecturing Megalodon he realized his connection was becoming somewhat murky, almost like water. Perched on the rock and mesmerized by his own dastardly actions, Singar would notice abnormalities within the lake of flesh before him. It was almost as if something was swimming in it…In fact, something was. It was very tiny almost like a fish! It couldn’t possibly be but it actually was. His orange and white stripes of scales were as clear as day.

Amphiprioninae sprung out the lake like a flying fish in a fashion that appeared as if he was going to ram the demon but it was not feasible considering how small he was. The closer the clownfish got the larger he appeared to grow. In addition, the murkier the surrounding area appeared and felt around Singar.

In a few seconds, Amphiprioninae now dwarfed Singar and he could feel himself at this moment submerged within a giant mass of dark water. Whipping his tail which alone was several times larger than Singar, the fish imposed a force that could potentially mash the demon across the rocks like a mere bug. Singar didn’t realize it initially but he was figuratively in Amphiprioninae’s bowl. Using and imitating what he had analyzed, the fish successfully opened a back door to Singars mind by meticulously picking apart the midnight fog. Now he openly engaged him in a battle of psychic warfare made physical in this pseudo-realm he created. It was a spectacle Amphiprioninae rarely resorted to but he needed answers and if not satisfied he’d prefer to carry out his mission on his lonesome.

Having flipped the situation he began mocking Singar with his words.

“You’ve taken something from us Singar… Won't you give it back.”

Where would that leave Megalodon? At the moment he was under a tremendous amount of stress and as his cohort was occupied in engaging their target. You would think he had to defend the glass but it was powerful enough to resist the damage because of one reason. It had the sufficiency of an entire realm keeping it whole. The same realm Singar was now being engaged in. Unless that was shattered from within physical attempts were futile on delivery.

This left the shark alone and because of this, there was no restriction on his power…There was nothing the shark could do besides what he only knew.

The metal composed of his right arm hummed with the intake of energy. Nearing the end of the attack, it was luminous in appearance but surprisingly not damaged. Containing many of the qualities of Draedamantium, it resisted the energy well. Afterward, the ridiculously tight woven fibers began to multiply and grew to an enormous size. If anything this was a sign of things to come. He curled his fist into a tight grip, signaling Megalodon was still strong despite being charred. This was the exact moment when he began exhibiting the effects of what he had been doing not even days prior.

Releasing a roar potent enough to blow Sarach and Agron back if unguarded, Megalodon blasted a hole in the fog strong enough to disperse it by force elsewhere for the time being, though that was not its intention. Megalodons skin began to bubble uncontrollably, signaling growth. His insides and nerves were jolting with kilowatts upon kilowatts of energy, signaling something incredible about to take place. One by one he began exhibiting the traits of the thousands of Val’gara he has consumed. The shark’s muscular structure expanded rapidly before fitting his now simmering skin and bionic arm snuggly

He was now even larger than the of the duo before him and because his mind was completely detached from everything he only saw their presence as one thing. Food. Without thought, his reaction to the soaring tail was a simple one. As it came slamming towards him he’d garner grips on the tail with his indestructible maw, quickly pulling them downwards in the earth like an incoming missile. On impact, the ground shook and softened to the point where a large portion began to flow like a sea of sand sloping downwards to the east. This seismic activity endangered the passages as a whole and if not stopped could lead to utter destruction of the entire area and eventually further. Gripping the tail, he transferred the energy through his hundreds of rows of teeth that channeled it like a lightning rod into his bottomless pit of a stomach where it was never to be seen again. That was far from the most impressive feat in his actions, however.

The fact that he could whip either beast around like a great white with an helpless surfer within the sand was a feat of pure unmatched strength. He threatened to rip the beast to shreds. Tasting the blood, it was the beginning of an unorchestrated rampage only the shark was capable of. If not stopped Soran as a planet could be in danger.

Megalodon’s Bloodlust had been reignited.

The Lake of Flesh

The Midnight Fog was a dead zone for all types of energies, trapping and containing them within its supernatural stasis field, lost within the mysterious blue cloud. Psychic energy amounted to little more than electromagnetic waves emitted from the brain, and were as such subject to the Fog's influence. Not even Singar could circumvent this fact, thus explaining the aperture he had created that allowed his psychic voice to reach the duo and deliver his vitriolic message. The moment Amph attempted to breach the Fog, an infinitesimally small region of it became luminous with faint sparks of captured psionic discharge, dimmed out, and returned to its normal dark color.

Singar witnessed this and scoffed silently, his grin fading as he observed the ephemeral light show, slowly closing his eyes as he breathed out through his nose, completely unsurprised by Amph's ignorance.

Then came the Sharkborg's blaring roar, and Corruptor immediately deafened his senses, his pale face scrunching together into an agitated scowl as he witnessed the Midnight Fog suddenly start to disperse. He watched with a vague sense of intrigue, though mostly annoyance, viewing Megalodon's battle with Agron and Sarach as massive dueling shadows through the fog's veil.

Sarach wrapped its serpentine body around Megalodon's frame as they fell, holding the beast close to it and constricting with all its might as the ground came closer. It would not be made into sustenance for the Sharkborg, as Agron had assured with its flaming blue aura that had been radiating off its dusty form since the moment it emerged from the desert. Both Amph and Megalodon would feel their brains being pummeled with wave after wave of psychic force. It was the spiritual equivalent of being hit in the head by a sledgehammer, and continued endlessly throughout their journey toward Soran's surface.

Just before impact, the swirling cloud reached out and touched the soil, quickly spreading its influence down through the terrain, superheating as well softening it to the point that it was able to absorb the impact, reducing the damage down to a mere rattling of Liaita's surface had it not acted to protect to guard the world that was its home, the preservation of the Entropic Passages being merely serendipitous. The sub-terrain rapidly grassy terrain split loose and toppled over, exposing the rapidly melting subterrain that was quickly turning into a molten pool that was under Agron's total control. The battle between the monsters would not stop escalating here, however, for just as quickly as Agron had softened the ground to protect the continent from harm, so too did the elemental shape-shifter melt the region around them, reducing everything to a molten pool which closed up around Megalodon. At that point the pool started to compact around itself, seeking to crush the Shark as well as the little fishbowl containing Amphiprininae by bonding to its glass surface and breaking it apart.

Meanwhile, something else seemed to be moving through the soil, emanating a pine green glow as it neared the conflict. Though Amph and Megalodon may not have realized it at the time, had either of them bothered to look down when they arrived, they would have seen the fleshy extensions that had been ravaging Liaita's east coast, stemming from the Lake of Flesh itself. He had been rendered exhausted from the carnage of a previous battle, and this disturbance in his sleep only served to agitate him. Thane's gruesome experiences within the Circle of Gluttony, his strange encounter with the black shadow on his way to Colossus, the betrayal of the Val'gara by the Collective, and that bastard chimpanzee trying to interfere with his attempts at rebuilding the family - HIS family - which were now in shambles had all taken their toll on the Stalker's mind.

He just couldn't control his rage any longer.

The flesh growth burrowed through dirt and rocks, moving under and over the warzone the trio fought within, forming giant artificial hands which wrapped themselves around the section of unmelted land that surrounded molten pool and began dragging the entire mass toward the Lake of Flesh.

“My sleep comes to an end, doesn’t it? Soon, I will awaken. Soon, things will become clear. Already I can fell the tug, the pull of a battle I’m meant to win – but have yet seen. I’ve slept for the entirety of my life, and I have no clue who or what I’m supposed to be doing. I know nothing of my destiny, save that I’m meant to rule – to lead. But what I am to lead, and who I am to lead, is yet unknown. I’m not sure I’m ready, the time is too soon. Or is it? I don’t know, I’ve slept for so long. Yet, I can feel it…I’m awakening. O’, but am I prepared for what is to come? Idea give me strength.”

A hundred thousand years of sleep leaves the mind groggy and the body entropic, and when attached to a psychic so powerful as to continue evolving and growing its mind despite those two inevitable outcomes, it projects that same in a powerful field. While his place of slumber was untouched for all those years, many came and walked through the caverns above – many found themselves within the impossibly large range of that psychic field. In the end, despite his body remaining hidden, the vicinity of his chambers was given a name. One that permeated through the Multiverse, and drew in those who wished to usurp it for their own.

The Entropic Passages.

Now, though, the entropic field seemed to be drawing in on itself. The creatures which evolved to live within it could feel it, and they continued to scurry toward the epicenter – trying to keep themselves inside the exertion of that psychic force. They dove deeper into the caverns, they turned throughout the tunnels and continued to follow them downward – until they ran into walls impassable, dead-ends that seemed to be just that. Most of those creatures burrowed, they continued their trip downward. Far beneath the explored part of the cavernous region, they dug deeper and deeper – until it almost seemed like they would run into the core of Soran itself.

Finally, though, they congregated upon a massive cavern, one with no openings save for the ones they created. They moved toward the far side, which was shrouded in darkness so thick even their keen eyes couldn’t make out anything outside a couple of feet. It was there, in that ever-expanding darkness, that they ran into a wall. Literally, and suddenly the entropy which plagued their bodies, fed them and evolved them into monstrosities, simply ceased. Their multilayered eyes shifted, and with their presence light flickered on. They looked upward, in the dimness created by floating, orange bulbs of luminescence. Those with cognitive functions beyond base instincts understood, on some level, that they peered upon their end.

Their eyes focused on the outline of a gargantuan doorway, closed and seemingly locked – and through it their keen ears picked up on the sounds of a voices singing, dulcet tones acting in perfect harmony, though the words were grotesque and sounded like someone speaking through a mouth full of nails. Some undoubtedly tried to run, but no matter which direction they took off in, they slammed into a solid, impenetrable wall of nothing, falling dead at the very touch. Others were curious, or just hungry, and they began to push on the doorway. No matter their strength, no matter their efforts, it would not move. Whatever lay beyond that door, whatever was locked away inside this place, they were keen to find out and sink their ferocious, animalistic fangs into its flesh.

---

Awakening The Beast

Suddenly the singing stopped, and it was then that he knew his time was here. A thousand years passed since he began thinking for himself, and though he knew the time was coming – he was unprepared. At least, in his mind. His eyes snapped open, and only darkness met them. It meant little to him, for he’d never known what it was to see. His fingers shifted, though he didn’t understand how or what caused them to do such a thing. His body was weak, his energy gone – poured into the psychic web he’d woven in his sleep, which was now unraveled. Powerless, defenseless, he lay on his back atop a stone pyre, a monolith at each corner. The sound of the voices lingered in his mind, threatening to lull him back into that magic sleep. Yet, they slowly began to fade from memory, and with their passing his energy returned. Still, though, he was weak beyond compare and measure. A fly, should it have taken the notion, could have wiped him from existence.

But where his body was weak, his mind was strong. It wasn’t something he thought, but just something he instinctually knew. Casting out with his thoughts, he found someone disturbingly close – though its presence was one he felt for centuries. The Watcher. His watcher, the guard who stood sentinel for his weakened form. It was put into place on the day of his birth, and from that moment on held the unending task of watching over the sleeping form. Finally, though, awakening came. The other felt his mind touch its own, and knew their time together was at an end. The sound of footsteps walked across the stone floor, and he felt a hand touch his own.

“It is time, my lord. The civil war comes, and your awakening is upon us. It is time for you to do what you were created to do.”

“I don’t know what that is, I don’t even know who I am. What can I do?”

“You can fight, my lord. I will teach you. My life, for yours.”

With those words, spoken in a language dead and forgotten for thousands of years – and with great wonderment from the slumbering monstrosity who didn’t even know it could talk, much less knew language – the watcher began to fade. Its hand slipped upward, touching his temple. Without warning, knowledge flooded into him – and strength as well. Suddenly it understood, it knew what it must do – what the prophets meant when they foretold his coming. He knew about the prophecy, he knew how to speak, to walk, to talk. Most importantly, he knew who he was. He knew what he was created for, what purpose he served. The embodiment of the watcher faded, and realization flooded into him that it was simply his subconscious made physical.

---

Along the coast of Liaita, things were happening beyond the control of the natural born denizens of Soran. Monsters from another world invaded, and they sought to end the life of one of their own. The ground shook with the bombardment of the two opposing forces, and the very sky seemed to be ablaze with the might of their energies. The shark man and the warrior Thane fought for their lives in a brutal battle, Agron and Sarach existed with only their true purposes to uphold – and Singar watched it all unfold with his own devilish grin for plans that could come to fruition. However, deep in the Entropic Passages, something far more sinister lurked.

The massive doorway swung open, and finally those creatures trying their might to get in found themselves with access. They ran in, their variously sized legs propelling them at different speeds – but toward the same thing. They sought food, but yet seemed to not understand that they were the food. Everything was lain into place so long ago. The placement of his body, the psychic field which evolved those specific creatures. It was all part of the greater plan, a plan put in place by Idea himself, long before the Val’gara were fully established as a thing. The gut-wrenching sound of bones snapping, of blood spilling, and the blood-curdling screams of creatures being ripped to shreds perforated the cavern outside the door, but none could stop themselves from entering. A thousand. A hundred thousand. Two hundred thousand. Their bodies were consumed, their life-force shoved down the gaping maw of a man-like creature far beyond anything they could comprehend. It chose this form from memories, but of what and who it was unclear. It called itself he by wrote, for that was the gender it chose to become. Suddenly, the sound stopped. The creatures were all but gone, save the Spider Queen herself, who was by and large the most capable and intelligent of the lot.

Still, though, she was compelled within the room – her massive eight legs pulling her into the light. Her concave eyes landed on the back of the human-like thing, as it adorned itself in its clothing. The horror on her face, looking across the blood-spattered remnants of the room, paled only in comparison to the tone of the other skin. A hundred thousand years without sunlight, after all, would make anyone a little light in complexion. She recognized him not, though it was evident he existed long before her species, much less before her own tiny, infantile lifespan.

The resounding snap of bracers being latched over naked wrists resonated throughout the room, and the creature turned its gaze from the mirror-like liquid, to look directly at the spider queen. “Why, hello there, madam. I must apologize for the mess, but such a long sleep will make you quite ravenous. Your children were delicious, as were the other so-called predators that made my chambers their home for so long. Your survival, however, is tantamount upon your usefulness. I have some business, you see, on the coast of Liaita. If you could be so kind as to point the way?”

One of her arms shifted, without her willing it to do so, to point directly toward the battleground upon which Megalodon and Thane fought. Her eyes widened further than usual, and her thoughts were only of running away – yet she could not make her body move. He stepped forward, his body shifting as he did so. As his teeth sank into her throat, and he began ripping her body to part, eating her like he’d done so many others before he, she could only think of the horror which she’d witnessed. Nothing compared to the terror his true form wrought upon her.

---

The rumbling ground would have given them warning, if the ground didn’t already rumble so much from the very nature of their meeting. Singar, Thane, Megalodon, Agron and Sarach should have known what was coming – but unfortunately their own actions made it nigh impossible to ascertain anything. However, when it came they were all made quite aware of what was happening. The rumbling intensified, and with a great blast of power the Gates of Doloran exploded. The Entropic Passages pushed upward, rocketing sod and rock, dirt and grass into the sky. The massive structures which made up the Gates themselves cracked and crumbled, falling against one another before crumbling to pure nothingness.

The Niraans, who first prophesized the coming of him, understood what was happening – and maybe Thane could remember enough of their old ways, to know the story of what this meant. The others, though? They’d have no clue. It would be fearful enough, his display of might at blowing apart major locations on the surface with nothing more than a single, concentrated burst of energy – but would they truly understand what was happening? Would they be capable of comprehending the true nature of their enemy?

The Val’garans would. At his creation, he was imbued with such powerful psychic energies that, upon his awakening the Hivemind itself was reconstituted and reactivated. What was lost with Brobdingnag and the death of Idea returned with his coming. They could sense one another again, speak to one another mind-to-mind, and no longer did they have secrets from one another. No longer could they simply hide their true feelings. They flooded through, and fed off one another. The link reestablished itself, and through it he could speak to them.

“What have you done, you insufferable children? Father dies, Mother dies, and you suddenly begin to squabble amongst yourselves? What ignorance is this? What manner of stupidity flows through you? How could this have happened? You were supposed to conquer, to consume. You were meant to destroy, but not one another. Not ourselves. Disciple, come.”

As he spoke the words, Disciple appeared on the battlefield below – though how or what brought him here could only be surmised as the strength the newcomer held. Suddenly, he – too – shifted and appeared before them, once more in the man-like form originally seen by the spider queen. “You were given a task, Disciple. You were to uphold our standards in the event anything happened to Father. You were to hold us together, to protect Mother. You failed.”

With a movement quicker than lightning, his hand snapped closed around Disciple’s neck – effortlessly lifting him from the ground. Arm fully extended, the sheer terror in Disciple’s eyes spoke enough of his true power. Through his hand, he drained the others considerable energy. Almost as soon as he lifted him, he flung his arm to the side and launched the emptied husk of a creature toward the waters. The sound of his body splashing into the liquid resonated in the near-quiet that seemed to have fallen around him.

“And you, Thane…you were meant to convert your world, yet you seem to have failed in your task. You were meant to be more than any before you, but you have become less than nothing. You and the others let the Hellion kill mother. And worse yet, you allowed him time to escape. Have you found him? Do you have even the tiniest, faintest idea where he might have gone? Of course not, you’ve been too busy fighting one of the weaker Heralds, and for what? You are a failure, my child, far and beyond Disciple’s own does your failure reach.”

His head shook, and though he wanted to strike out, he held himself in check. Instead, he turned his attention to the shark-creature.

“And you…your failure runs deepest of all, but only because it is a single, constant thing. You, who have conquered nothing in our name, who has converted and consumed so little that the number itself is negligible, fight back against your Elders. Your superiors. We, the Heralds of true strength, who were created by Anathema, or in my case Idea himself, are the successors to the antecedent’s reign. Not you, who was created from the boredom of lesser beings. You are nothing, a child playing with a loaded gun, and only hoping you don’t accidentally shoot yourself.

“This ends now. You will return to your posts, you will do your fucking jobs, and you will stop this ignorant aggression. If you wish to test me, to test the true power of Idea, then remember this – what I do to you cannot be undone. Your death, by my hand, is eternal. So, you are given your choices. Fall in line, do as you were made to do now that the Hivemind is reestablished, and we can once again be a seamless machine working toward the same goal…or fight against it. Test your willpower against the Will of Idea.”

He made no motion of aggression, and gave no name that any could have discerned throughout his speeches. He wasn’t even sure he had one. He was the Will of Idea, the living embodiment of something that once was and came again. All that meant, for them, was that to fight against him was to fight against the very thing that drove them, that allowed them to continue their pitiful existences for so long. He was, as far as he and they knew, the living embodiment of Idea himself.

Or maybe he was just a complete psycho who slept for way too long, and was given fanciful notions about what his considerable power meant. Either way, it was clear he wasn’t just your normal Herald, since the very act of his awakening reestablished a psychic connection that spread throughout the Multiverse, and touched every living Val’garan mind. Whatever, and whoever, he was – they certainly weren’t up against anything like they’d ever faced before.

Shadows shedding skin.
I've been picking scabs again.
I'm down digging through my old muscles for a clue.

I've been crawling on my belly clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own confused and insecure delusions for a piece to cross me over or a word to guide me in.
I wanna feel the change coming down.
I wanna know what I've been hiding in...

- Tool, Forty-Six & Two

~*~

For ages untold he lusted over it - since far before the first of his many resurrections, when he was yet a small-souled creature.

Even through the smoke of time and distance he recalled his first life, that of Theo Spyredes on distant Earth, albeit as if remembering the life of a being not himself, enduring the toll of its each agonizing second. This proved merely one facet of the perfect jewel of his punishment, a diamond fashioned to fit the chain that hung around his neck and his alone: to remember, remember without remorse or regret, but to remember all the many moments of his existence, to have his vanity smashed again and again against the wall of a life that could be measured in its failures... To have every triumph soured by the taste of what would come after, threaded through the knowledge of what came before, until he saw the patterns of himself and how they led to his defeat. Again and again.

But pain can also be a teacher.

He knew now that since the very beginning, he was a slave to his search for it.

The cold of Cocytus, final and deepest of Hell's circles, froze each thought to a crawl. Each memory took a thousand years to lurch onward to the next. From beneath the ice, he clawed desperately for the tantalizing images of his last moments, of how he had come to rest in the pit - and slowly, he realized that though the life drifting before his eyes was unmistakably his own, it lacked identity to seal memory to experience. Without his identity, without his name, what was left of his soul shivered in base animal fear: the fear of another failure, an ultimate failure that could undo him.

For without his name, how could he find it?

That which he had so greedily hoarded over his many lifetimes, across the conquest of a thousand worlds; a treasure torn from lives innumerable, pilfered from the smoking ruins of cultures as proud and ancient as any in all the multiverse, raped from a million hearts to be placed on the burning pyre of his devotion... Devotion to a god, but more than that to himself, and to a yearning even greater than the almighty hunger of his people. Yes, even from here, even in the cold that froze his very soul, he felt the heat of that hunger.

The aching need for it.

His inward search yielded certain doubts from the freezing black of the abyss that claimed him.

WHO AM I?

HOW HAVE I COME HERE? And another question, clear because there can be no mistaking the sin that triumphs to earn a soul its seat in Hell:

WHO DID I BETRAY?

He could count so many. But there was one mystery above all others, a question directed at the unquenchable thirst that ruled him through all of his many lives, at the obsession that mastered him, and the fear that what he had fought for across so many battlefields could be lost in his final defeat, even while another splinter of his fractured self sensed that defeat made him infinitely stronger...

WHERE
IS
MY
POWER?

Struggling beneath the ice, his inner eye peered across the cosmos in search of the seeds he had scattered across many dreaming galaxies. They were the vague possibilities, the ones that might or could have been. But some were much more, and as fate would have it, an opportunity presented itself to unify their many fractions. Like the water from many tributaries pouring into one almighty river, a single power could be formed. As his disembodied eyes took in the coldest depths of Hell, another peered through a man's eyes on old Earth, and upon the blackness of the cosmos, and the surfaces of planets diverse unto very limits of nature.

He had lost his body, he had been defeated once again, but he was many steps closer to the power he craved. Though his core had been banished to Hell he still had many hands to work with and eyes to see - or would, once his hands found bodies for themselves. On Soran, where a family reunion of sorts was soon to unfold, one such pair of questing hands chanced upon a suitable vessel.

~*~

Years or centuries ago, within the region of city-states networked by the Gates of Doloran

No single myth recounts the origin of the white stone monoliths that reach towards the mountainous peaks of Liaita. Not even the civilization that call themselves the children of the Gates profess absolute knowledge of the forces that fashioned them. Some whisper tales of the elder dragons that nest in the lost corners of the world, others of the Twelve whose shrines proliferate in the shadowlands beneath the forest canopy. The Dolor are a curious race themselves; they dwell with one foot in the spirit world, given the proximity of their evolution to the highest concentrations of Soran magic. Their faces are pulled forward into a cricket's shape, their eyes bulbous black lenses, humanoid frames furred from the face down. The fairie fauna indigenous to the region are likewise insectile creatures, touched as they are by the magic of the forest and the Gates.

In a lost year, plague struck the Niraans, killing so many that their limited infrastructure collapsed and they were thrust back into the grip of paleolithic savagery. No dragon-song was heard throughout the Liaitan mountains. Prayer to the Twelve went ignored, or worse, augured further misfortune. The Gates fell dormant, isolating the infant Doloran city-states from one another, and the sorcerers were loathe to call upon them for fear of depraved horrors glimpsed on the other side. A new star hung red and fat in the sky; it would come to be called the Tear of the Stillborn, for in the history of the Dolor this period would be known as an age in which a thirteenth god was born dead and the labor of its passing brought ruin upon the world.

In that desperate time, Amatlavira was scarcely a shadow of who he would come to be, for it was an a time prior to the tragedy that led him so far astray from the arboreal paths his people carved through Liaita. For generations, his brood tended the fungi plantations in subterranean ghettos of the Doloran settlements. While tending their crop, a flock of ghost moths took them by surprise well past hatching season, gorging themselves on the nectar of his brothers' and sisters' minds.

Preternaturally aware since long before he learned of his destiny, Amatlavira hid himself in the rotten matter that clots the mushroom fields, passing patient hours, surviving, watching. He relived the cautionary tales whispered in the ear of every Doloran child. Since his people wandered the forest in mindless swarms, they avoided the moths, for they too were children of the Old Father and to trespass upon their divine ecology invited holy wrath.

So he listened to their chittering cries from the qliphoth in which they dwelt, and it became the music of his dreams and waking life. On the edge of that between-place, his soul smoky with despair, Amatlavira heard the voice for the first time.

What do you see?

He thought he saw the truth of the world's madness then. Seeking solace from his terror, Amatlavira found refuge in prayer, but the Twelve had turned their backs on the Dolor, gone to mourn their sibling the Neverborn, whose grave pitted the sky. But he knew little of truth... until at last he tasted it when a visitor chanced upon his ruined shelter.

He came from the deepways, from within the bowels of the mountains and of Soran itself, places from which no creature returned unchanged. Leprous with spores of the dream-eater fungus, said to grow only in the Old Father's garden at the center of the world, he claimed the parasite gave him visions in exchange for his life. The spore-eaten prophet claimed the Twelve had indeed abandoned them, though he offered no insight into their motive. In his dreams the cities of Doloran grew ripe with heresy and rotted on the vine without the gods to tend their fields. The proud white stone lost its luster beneath the moss and undergrowth as Soran reclaimed its mountains; the Gates themselves became weeping wounds upon the world, discharging horror after horror until at last no trace remained of what had been before.

But, he said in words soaked with fear and exaltation, in his visions he saw their salvation. He gripped Amatlavira with palsied hands, betraying already the last symptoms of the dream-eater as his eyes became smoky cataracts and his breath grew pungent with the mold that ate him from within... Nonetheless, he was not mad in the way of zealots to whom prayer is the only anchor.

Instead he said with shocking serenity, "There is one who watches, a shepherd who tends pastures that the Twelve abandoned, who gazes down through a scar in the heavens." A cough rattled the man's body and he nearly dropped to his knees. His chest heaved as he fought to force air back into lungs thick with fungus. "A thirteenth god, far more alive than the Twelve and their priests... a god that clamors for a champion..." The wanderer wheezed and breathlessness seized him; with each sharp cough he ejected a small cloud of spores from his mouth. Once the fit left him, the visitor stared intently into the earth, waiting with patience ill-suited to a dying man.

"This means nothing to me," Amatlavira said, kindness blunted by tragedy. "Be they twelve or thirteen or a thousand, the gods have abandoned me."

Despite his imminent death, the stranger pressed his chin into his chest. His lips drew back in a sneer. He laughed and it was a fragile thing, childlike, as if untouched by the world and its horrors that make sharp even the softest sound.

"Not abandoned. Far from it. Chosen... Yours is a far greater destiny than mine. You must no longer order your soul by the familiar metric. You walk another path now, one the Twelve cannot reckon, but would destroy for their blindness. On Soran and a thousand other worlds, the old ways falter... but ours is unlike all the others, for it is not merely a grave for the gods whose power wanes. Our world is a womb, and it calls for you."

Amatlavira's face became loutish for its lack of expression. "The fungus eats your mind, traveler. Take your delusions away from here. Leave me to my grief."

Again he was met with that sneering smile in the face of a death near enough that Amatlavira knew he would never leave the subterranean ways, never again glimpse the bleak Soran sun.

"Doubt will eat yours, child. Was it fortune that you escaped death to be left alone? Could not my arrival speak to some deeper meaning of your life?" As the leper drew away, gathering his cloak about him to start towards the forest road, he said, "I merely offer what you lack, Amatlavira, and that is purpose. Tend your fields, struggle ever onward, for the way is written. Your purpose will find you."

Amatlavira watched his back until the wanderer disappeared around a curve in the road, and though eager to mull over the mad prophecy the leper had spoken of, he found that a question invaded his mind and he could not push it from his thoughts.

What do you see?

A purpose?

~*~

On the eve of the battle between Megalodon and Singar, the constellations gleamed in the same alignment as they had on a night of ill omen, a long time before. True to the prophet's words, Amatlavira had wandered far from the subterranean ghettos of the Doloran, far even from the world-roads between Gates that conveyed his people from one mountainous city to the next. The forest welcomed him. Half-mad with grief and loneliness, for never had Amatlavira known a life without his crèche-mates, he expected to become a predator's quick morsel, but they merely observed his pilgrimage across their wild lands. When his torch failed him in the bleak hours of the Soran night, fairies cast their ghostly light from the shadows to guide him. Underneath and between the roots of the great trees he crept, past uncharted groves and trackless cliffs, across streams alive with glittering fish, over the ancient battlefields of the violent Soran ecosystem, into a place which nature itself hid from all prying eyes. Days bled into a meaningless cycle. Even the road to his destiny was enough to transform him: at last the world spoke to him, as it had in whispers since his childhood, and Amatlavira was able to learn the origin of the crucial intuition that had saved his life and steered him towards this lone possibility among so many.

Awareness returned to him as he crested a hill whose king was a mighty tree. Among the many things the forest taught Amatlavira on his journey was that the woodland creatures often claimed sacred places to hold their court: so it was that he knew immediately the identity of the alien skeleton which swung from the tree's lower branches. The creature's crown, a wreath of wilted flowers, still clung to its brow. Yet it was not the dead fairy king who had called Amatlavira into this faraway land - though kings they were, of dread knowledge, practitioners of magic that perverted creation and sinned against the very design of the Twelve... yet perhaps their brother the Stillborn was wont to retain such company.

They emerged like flowers blooming from the shadow of the hanging tree: five prophets, each the finger of a far-reaching hand, each the knuckle of a great fist. One was a squat, limbless thing in a stone cradle, eyes weeping mucous, gnawing at its lower lip so that a sheet of blood soaked the fur of its face and chest; the next a tall wisp of a man, a glittering robe thrown over a garishly thin frame, glittering not for its luster but because it was a mantle of flies, waiting in perfect silence; a beautiful, androgynous Doloran in the prime of their youth, organs floating within crystal growths that covered their body, including the shell of their brain; an albino, furless Doloran whose naked body was instead a statue of sculpted white flesh, slimy and sleek to the touch and smelling of fish, its face pried open so that it sheathed another face whose mouth was a knot of thrashing feelers.

The last of them was familiar, and Amatlavira realized he had felt certain all along of this second encounter with the dream-eater prophet whose words awoke him from the sleep of his past life. Fungus covered his entire body, sprouting at impossible angles, clouds of insects orbiting like constellations, one socket sealed shut by mold and the other a black pit within which burned a light like a distant star...

Amatlavira, the beautiful one whispered.
Such a prizssse... intoned the tall one.

"The voice that called me here," Amatlavira said, dead to his fear. "Was it yours?"

It issss not oursss... whispered the buzzing flies.
The voice that calls... warbled the face within the face.

Laughter, thin and eerie, passed through the circle like the lash of a whip.

But it issshh you we sshheeek! the bloody one cried.
It is you we designed, said the beautiful being, its soft voice like a muted windchime.

"Yes." Amatlavira closed his eyes, sunk his chin into his chest. He thought for a moment and the wind atop the hill drew its fingers through his fur.

"I know, now, that my dreams were portents. That every detail was carefully laid to precipitate the next, on and on until I arose, the sum of many calculated moments. But tell me, should your plan have failed, would not another have come to stand in my place?"

There is always another, said the prophet he met in the underways.

"What is the purpose, then, of the path I walk?"

You will be...
A sssshurrogate...
For the Stillborn.
Yours will be a life...
Spent not by the year...
But by the ssscycle.

Amatlavira blinked at their proposal. "By the cycle? What can this mean?"

Yours will become...
More a legend than a life.
You will ssssshlide in and out of thisssh world...
Killing kings and ending eras...

The fungus-eaten prophet regarded him and in its shining stare Amatlavira thought he saw pity. You will live while all you know dies,
sleeping for ages in secret grottoes beneath the earth, sleeping amid worms and dirt, arising only when we require you to carve a new wound in the world. Your soul will grow fat with years of sacrifice, and you will accrue a hundred names which will be uttered as curses and prayers alike...

Until at lassshht...
You will yourself become the Stilborn...
And on the day of your rebirth...
You and He will return to another, older name.

And as they reached toward him, and Amatlavira felt everything he had ever been wash away in the river of a far greater mind, still he heard it call out --

WHAT DO YOU SEE?



Moments after the destruction of the Gates of Doloran by the newly awakened godling...

And at last, he realized, it was the answer to his millennial question. It was comical because as the epiphany struck him, Amatlavira - though over the centuries this had become but one of many names - realized that he had heard it many times over the course of his long life. Even at the very beginning, he thought in wonder, his birth promised ill fortune for the shamans had seen it in his eyes. Minuroi-Kas the Necromancer, who had been his worthiest foe, promised he too had seen it and that he would claw free from Hell to cleave Amatlavira's life from him when it arrived. In the past, Amatlavira had believed he witnessed it many times before, but only now, before its unquestionable truth, did he achieve absolute certainty.

It was the end of the world.

He arrived at this conclusion while perched atop a chunk of smashed masonry. Instead of crumbling inward with the rest of the Gates, this particular piece of debris hesitated in the air, then hurtled out towards the escarpment where a handful of beings negotiated the terms of an interstellar war. He did this despite knowing that, for all his power, these alien gods dwarfed him; that he raced towards certain death should it become a contest of strength, for though he could draw deep from the world, the invaders did not measure themselves by notches in a blade or the legends of a nation, but by the extinction of worlds and species, by wars which made graves of entire galaxies.

The world itself cried out to him. His every animal instinct, honed across endless eras of battle, urged him to turn back, to return to the burning forests of the Dolor. The voice that commanded him, however, was stronger by far. Since his birth he had been sired again so that his was no longer the Old Father, but another, darker power. He had killed his fear and slept through dynasties ancient and contemporary alike, but never before had his awakening brought such finality.

The end of the world called him, and he could not but answer.

His senses remained prick to the slightest refocusing of the invaders' attention to account for him, but he was otherwise oblivious as he approached the lake of flesh which oozed upon the plain and the mountain's rocky shelf. Viscous currents tugged at the twitching sea of tissue from within, slowed by the cold emanating from an unmistakable source at its epicenter. The severed hand of a God rested there, submerged to its knuckles in a grisly ocean, clutching a broken sphere of dark stone. Icy black water poured from its cracks, at contact chilling the lake into glaciers from melted skin...

Amatlavira knelt down, reaching tentatively with one hand to touch the lake's surface... a moment of quiet insanity... contemplating his reflection...

Without warning the flesh before him pulsed, then animated. A tendril lashed out and only Amatlavira's superhuman reflexes allowed him to brandish his blade and in a single sweeping gesture, quick unto invisibility, disperse the limb into a bloody mist. A moment's respite followed, then a half dozen more tentacles emerged, and these too he deflected, but in the next exponentially faster volley his arm was ensnared and then defense became impossible.

In an instant of struggle, it ended: a life that outran the oldest legends, a cultivated life...

The immense pool of flesh rippled, trembling from its center out to the very edges. As if again seized by counterfeit life, and despite the cold of Cocytus itself, the lake bubbled, then pulsated. The heart of an atrocity restored to life at long last, a heart that beat, once... twice... and on the third, a fundamental change occurred. The hand of God abruptly submerged, as if into a trench a thousand leagues deep. The bowl of Cocytus He gripped in His palm sank only to the divine fingertips that clutched the stone cold for purchase, evicted by Singar from Hell itself.

A silent interlude passed. In it, a soul was welded into a new life; a river's path was diverted to a lost tributary; blood flowed again through abandoned veins. A mind retrieved its identity from the shore of oblivion, and in doing so, a name returned to its owner.

Neither did the heart beat overlong before it stilled, then once more surged with its unholy animus. The lake flowed upward, through the fissures in Cocytus' shell, leaving the Ninth Circle stolen from the coffers of Hell itself to sit in its own freezing waters as they wept from its wounds.

This was how a god awakens - without any juvenile appetite for wanton destruction. Rebirth is its own testament. Its own trial...

Should ever Cocytus be returned to its place at the bottom of the deepest pit, and the ledgers of its sinners checked, there would be absences, souls conspicuously unaccounted for. Old and mighty souls.

Should ever the memorialists of any Soran race recall this apocalyptic day, there would be a common description no matter how diverse their language, culture or biology: a god haunts the world, they will write, a god believed dead, rotting in the Grave-with-no-bottom, entombed in the Great Pit, trapped in the Tear... a god haunts the world, not stillborn, but so terribly alive...

It did not so much leak as bloom from the cracks in Cocytus, a seething chaos across its surface that slithered through ruts in the graven rock, defiling the religious imagery of yet another canon. A great aperture commanded the center of the eldritch flower, its stalk creeping out above the land. Like a womb it disgorged its terrible burden, the seed of a fruit grown in the most unholy garden... a vile thing, no larger in span than a Scourgebearer's body, but its shadow in the ethereal world was greater by far. A hideous vessel, its form plundered from nightmares, twin horns curving phallic from a sphere of flesh and bone that pulsated as if ravaged by the life it concealed at random intervals.

The cyst hung in the air far below Singar's fog, trembling... as if its flesh were clay, a wormlike growth wriggled free from the space between the two horns, sculpting itself into a featureless humanoid puppet. Simultaneously, blood and viscera spewed from the tumor's frontward face as a slit traced itself from top to bottom, prying open to reveal a lone predatory eye that surveyed the world and all before it.

Yes... he gestated still within his womb, but at last, he had returned to life.

Narcissus, greatest among the traitorous sons of Idea, a warrior of the ages.

As if shock palsied its reaction to the birth of this atrocity, suddenly the world itself seemed to buckle beneath it. Directly beneath the orb-womb, a crater gouged itself from the earth; a shockwave flattened the first rows of the forest trees and smashed the rocky escarpments of the Liaitan mountains.

So long have we made war amongst ourselves
Murdering brothers for sport, plotting against father and child
But the path to salvation lies not in conquest, inward or outward

I alone offer shelter from the terrors that await
I who have suffered the torments in Hell
and the emptiness of the Dark Realm

I
ALONE
KNOW THE WAY...

And I will show you all
through love...
or destruction...
So tell me, my brothers

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

A destructive phenomenon was sweeping the multiverse with the arrival of a mysterious miasma. Blue-greenish nebulae filled the galaxy and brought corrosive downpours of gastric fluids wherever it flowed. These fluids carried enzymes that could not only dissolve solid objects but auras and energies. Virtually any form of matter in its path perished. As horrifying as the mass erasure of multiple star systems were, the fact is, much more was happening. All that corroded began to disappear beyond just the physical sense. All recognition of items, creatures, and even planets slowly slipped away from the conscious of those who could recollect them. Things that were definitive somehow became non-existent within the context of their mind.

It caught the attention of many. Countless civilizations evacuated while others attempted to understand and study what was approaching from space. All that could be inferred was that absurd levels of bioforce could be traced to clouds before simply vanishing.

Whereas clusters of star systems were being digested at a time, the powerful enzymes had difficulty breaking down a rather small object. It was no larger than a kilometer in diameter yet it remained. Why? In the face of acids, it simply multiplied its mass at a rate that was faster than it could be dissolved. Stuck in this action for more than an hour, its systems developed a means to escape. Powerful waves of molecular dissipating particles radiated from its spherical mass, targeting and eradicating the energy within the liquid's atomic bonds. As a result, all of the droplets pelting its frame lost cohesion and disappeared entirely while it navigated through space.

The once thought unstoppable planet-eroding force met an immovable object and an outsider was amused. So amused, it decided to find the source of the destruction and traversed its lengthy trail across the cosmos.

Humming about, its expression was quite jovial. It swam around space at what was literally light speeds, looping and twirling about though it could manifest itself in the desired location if it chose so. It was in no rush. Its cosmic-wide search brought it to a massive planet alone in its system with its sun. Amazingly, the planet pumped the nebulae of miasma into space like a volcano did ash. Further inspection revealed it wasn't actually a planet, rather it was planet sized. It was a creature of unimaginable mass. It was Caorthannach...

This entire nebula of death was merely the consequence of her spewing her digestive liquids into the confines of deep space. As an extension of her dual stomachs, it was efficient means of which she could harvest bioforce in bulk from all across the universe. As a result, a whole sector of space became unnavigable with the digestive cloud.

The fairy could read an expression of puzzlement on one of her faces and that was clear despite how much she dwarfed him. Almost like a hunch, she could feel something defying her and she was right. She became lost in thought attempting to figure out what was out there but his question quickly knocked her out of it.

"Quite the nuisance, isn't it?"

Considering the spirit was quite stealthy and incredibly small, it was generally surprised to see the direction of the cloud turn its way in an instant. Apparently, the fairy was in danger but its playful nature was only spurred on by the hostility.

"Come on... talk to me, baby."

The giant marine arthropod's negligence only encouraged it to try harder to make its presence worthwhile. Projecting itself to the size of a small moon, the cosmic fairy appeared above her, annoyingly hovering over Caorthannach in a spiral pattern until both sets of her illuminating eyes opened for the first time.

"Ah, so I finally got your attention huh? You've certainly garnered mine. You're pretty amazing if I must say but I have a few questions if you don't mind. You're causing quite the stir out here. You never know what you might end up alerting at this pace."

At this point, Caorthannach was not entirely aware of what she was dealing with but she knew its presence wasn’t to be slighted. In response, her heads twirled through space until one was on each side of the chaos fairy. The leftward angrily spoke to it.

"All is expendable for the benefit of my race."

Without delay, the right continued.

"If you have an issue, I have the means in which to deal with you. Do not test us."

"Whoa, let's not get so hasty now. Who said I was here to stop you, M'lady. I'm simply attracted to chaos, that's all. Is it so odd I find you interesting? I know of your race, just not you. How can I be of service in exchange for some direction?"

"Direction? I would be foolish enough to trust anything other than my own power, demon."

"Ah, I thought you'd say that, so I brought a gift! Here's what you were thinking about a while ago. I know it was bothering you. I could just see it! So here you go!"

The closed fist of the fairy constantly pulsed as if it were explicitly trying to contain something. The opening of it revealed a platinum sphere and immediately it seized movement. It was Panident. He instantly began analyzing the massive entities before it who were each a God in their own right. He was heavily outclassed at the moment.

With both faces bearing a look of contempt, she responded. “Not interested. Begone.”

“Oh come on now. You don’t even know what it does. Let me explain! This thing here may not be aware but it has some serious potential. I’ve kept an eye on to it thanks to a ragtag group of troublemakers I like to spectate from time to time. The point is, they haven’t done much lately so I’m bored. You seem more than capable enough to entertain me so why don’t you take this guy? I’m sure you could make him do whatever you want, especially with that whole hive mind thing you got going on there. Whoops, did I read your mind too much? Sorry about…uhh… letting you know I did it. By the way, the name’s Rhys.” The fairy said full of glee.

Immediately after hearing such, Panident went on high alert, processing millions of escape simulations simultaneously. He managed to jet out of the mischievous spirit’s hand and lunged its way into a portal only to come out in another portal where he began. After which, the hand closed shut, containing him like it had before. Trapped, he came to the realization there was no other option. Brutally, Panident caused himself to self-destruct, creating a blast potent enough to blow the hand off the fairy. Even after self-detonating, Panident was still there drifting away slowly within the residue of the blast and because of this, he would fail again.

The cosmic fairy did not pay much attention to his damaged limb. Shortly after the explosion, time for the two of them exclusively seemed to reverse and all the fragments of Panident pulled back together in his hand once again. This brief moment of hopelessness was something that eluded him up until this point. Several times Panident has fled but never was he in an inescapable position. At this point, running escape simulations and acting based off them meant nothing if beings did not adhere to the laws of the universe. Resistance was futile so yet another measure had to be taken. Barring the response of the massive creature, it could mean either he could be destroyed on the spot if they knew how or worse, taken over by the Val’gara hive mind. He could not allow this.

Ignoring Panident’s efforts to escape, he urged the creature to take action. “You see! This thing could be of use to you!”

Saying she was irritated would be an understatement. Filled with anger, Caorthannach was thoroughly offended to the highest degree by the fairy’s repeated efforts to tempt her. Her entire double helix body unraveled and morphed like a transformer of flesh and thousands of arthropod limbs. She was now surrounding the fairy with all of her extensions, creating a half dome with her body. Though Panident couldn’t see, he could sense the animosity. This was not a sign of good things to come. Either way, he was too far engaged in executing his last resort to process the implications this would cause. While such was being done, both heads of the beast ranted in unison.

“In the demise of my mother I have been entrusted with a great task. In many ways, we are the same and I inherited her will. In time, this entire universe and beyond will succumb to our ideology. I need not assistance from the likes of you to convert the cosmos. IN FACT, SINCE YOU ARE SO INCLINED ON HELPING, HOW ABOUT I BEGIN WITH YOU!?!?!?!”

In that moment for the first time in this entire engagement, the chaos fairy displayed a doubtful expression, even if it was still playful in intent.

“You don’t have to be so hostile, babe I only-“

Before he could finish millions of whips exploded from every crevice of her body; half physical and half astral. This Rhys could clearly see, and as the half dome began to close into a complete sphere he projected himself three and a half billion miles backward with Panident in hand. It didn’t take a genius to figure out how unfavorable it would be even for him to be trapped inside. From this distance he was safe.

“What a crazy bitch.” He laughed, but a problem had occurred.

Once she created the sphere, the fairy couldn’t gauge her feelings anymore. She successfully locked his influence out. What was she conjuring in there? Overconfident in his abilities, he maintained his position thinking that he could still sway her in the end. This proved to be a terrible miscalculation.

Having leeched off of the converted bioforce through her nebula-like secretion, she harbored ridiculous amounts of bioforce even by her standards. Molding it, she emulated an offensive maneuver utilized by the collective and began creating and manipulating tachyon particles. Conjuring them into a beam, she threaded the Vesuvius Virus into it in such a way that that could breach even the astral plane. Rhys would not see this attack incoming at all because theoretically, it would have already happened in the past once it was shot. When this massive beam exploded from her all of her extensions were whipped back. Instinctively, before seeing anything he began to move but it was in vain. Even with semi-omniscient foresight, he could not dodge. The narrow, vermillion beam pierced and wrapped his closed fist like a tendril. Ensnaring the deity’s limb, the Vesuvian virus attempted to infect all aspects of his mind body and spirit. Being the living embodiment of chaos, Rhys’ felt he had the capacity of resisting the beam but to do so would completely immobilize him for the time being. He could not afford to take that chance in front of her, so he surprisingly announced his departure.

“Well… I certainly wasn’t expecting that. You win some; ya lose some. We’ll cross paths again but I might not be so cordial next time so just remember that.”

Without much thought, he chopped his right arm off from the bicep down with his free hand. This was a severing that was both physical and spiritual. It was no longer apart of him in any aspect whatsoever but it did come at a cost. He did lose a fraction of prowess in the process. It wasn’t something he couldn’t get back with time but it was a loss nevertheless. Somewhat impressed, he showed her respect even though it was mostly sarcastic. He gave a bow and proofed away before the tendril beam could take hold of him once again.

It appeared Caorthannach had successfully fended the mischievous entity off. No small feat, but in the end, she did exactly what Rhys desired. Before her was a new herald in the making. She withdrew her specialized tendril beam and left the arm floating in space. The trillions and trillions of microorganisms within the clutched sphere aggressively shuffled into a slender form, lengthening tremendously before wrapping and encasing the arm entirely in a black luster. Progressively it began to shrink and shrink as they became one. At this point, Rhys’ limb was still abundant with his power and due to Caorthannach’s actions; they became a single entity.

The once smooth platinum exterior that was Panident’s default was no more. What was left was a matte black, filled with a fine razor edges throughout. The hive in which the property changing microorganisms abide by took on a more sinister agenda. This was no longer the sentient database which aided Merse. Its allegiance was entirely for a new cause.

It began to form itself from shapeless into a sea urchin like knot of razored spikes. It had no eyes, but the aura it gave of was one that reeked of premeditated bloodlust. He was born with the deeply instilled disdain for a certain individual and that he could not hide.

“I am not whole… A large portion of me is missing...he…no, I escaped.”

It was hard to understand what exactly he meant but his statement was factual. A part of him did escape. In fact, while the two juggernauts confronted each other Panidents last measure was to split his datasphere effectively into two realms. It was the essence of his being and after severing his connection to the other half they were essentially two different networks of sentience; one residing in the original datasphere and one in the newly formed dark datasphere. From there, Panident began to transfer the majority of the remaining half of its quadrillion files. Where this went wrong was that he failed to leave the desired .0000000001% in the sample of him left behind. This would have instructed the Val'gara converted body he left behind to destroy itself upon infection. The absolute worst possible outcome occurred.

The new herald escaped with nearly 30% percent of the existing data, keeping it as a significant threat. There would be a day when Panident would be hunted down by its brother opposite. Whether it was immediately or eventually he would be ready. Luckily for him and his allies, no Val’gara led hunt was imminent. Caorthannach had other plans for the newly shaped herald.

Filled with intrigue, this was the first time she openly displayed satisfaction on both of her faces. Looking down upon him, they began to converse among themselves, with the left stating “what an interesting specimen we have here.”

“Indeed, who knew a floating piece of trash could gift us such an impressive warrior.”

“We shall put him to use as of immediately.”

“I want to find him…no, me.” The herald projected a voice that signaled mild confusion.

“Caorthannach, I can become stronger.” He spoke. “I need to find the rest of my bodies navigating the universe. Only then-”

“No, for the time being, you are required for another task. Do what we as a species are designed to do; convert, consume and control. This is a mission you must carry out alone. Do not fail; know that it is not an option. Go forth, herald. As of today, you will be known only as Sepəlkər, The Synth. Harvest in the name of Idea. Harvest for the sake of us.

Understanding fully what he was designed to do, Sepəlkər said no more and blasted his way into space. Where he was headed not even Caorthannach had knowledge of. However, the space arthropod knew her direct order would mean the unkind demise of a species somewhere out in space. Sent out was a herald with the capability of multiplying himself nearly infinitely. In time, he could become an entire army in his own right.

What this meant for Soran was uncertain. For a species that was thought to have been endangered, new Heralds, Sons of Ideas and even once lost members were coming out the woodwork. Many of which, would not get along but collectively played a vital role in the reemergence of the race. Even now, attempts to revitalize the psi-link were in the works by a herald though it was not entirely practical considering where he was at. Caorthannach appreciated his labor but to her knowledge, he was no Brobdingnag and he was certainly no Idea. His efforts were mediocre but it would suffice for now. How much of it was due to the midnight fog which surrounded the entire continent is unknown, however, but it was definitely in effect. In the end, it could always be improved upon. Only through her own psychic prowess could she hear the recently awakened herald ranting clearly from so far away.

He had a lot to prove. He was not who he claimed he was simply because he believed so. Neither was she but Caorthannach at least shared the same flesh as her mother. That often was her justification. The inconsistencies of logic in which the Herald spoke with perplexed her but she had better things to do at the moment. It was time to gather assets. Megalodon and Amphiprioninae were entrusted to resolve the situation to the best of their ability. With that said, they were allies whether they acknowledged it or not with the emerged herald.

Before his arrival Megalodon had been in the process of being ambushed and attacked even by another herald. In fact, they all were. The snake attempted to constrict him but was pierced and gripped by coarse razor-like scales all across Megalodon’s body. As a result, when Megalodon propelled itself into a violent, alligator death-roll, with his already established vice grip on the snake, he ripped much of Sarach's flesh and set himself free. At this point, Amphiprioninae’s consciousness had returned to Megalodon’s bowl after briefly perusing Singar. He did not get to fully converse, but in the end, Singar’s head and body ached from getting struck, causing his body to carom off the rocks by the force of the clownfish's enlarged tail. This, of course, was a psychic blow. One of retaliation. The symbiotic duo was not here to play games. Subsequently, the demon did skillfully escape the realm but this was just the beginning of the engagement. Soon they were coming for his real body.

Agron continued his assault but it was nowhere as near as effective as he would hope. Megalodon was within his predator's frenzy and considering Amphiprioninae was back, he could leech off megalodon’s power and durability as his symbiotic partner. Amphiprioninae’s psychic durability became as solidified as Megalodon’s physical. A sledgehammer strike in retrospect at this point would be the equivalent to your average smack in the face to the fish. This allowed him to begin to mold psychic energy on a rotating pattern around them. Exploding off of Megalodon’s and his body was a blast of psychic shielding that pushed Agron’s attack off with a force that was strong enough to weaken the poundings.

Beneath the surface, the shark showcased yet again what made him so skilled. Agron, began manipulating the earth but he was unaware of the shark's elemental prowess in regards to the earth as well. Megalodon was extremely resistant to molten and earth based attacks due to it being in fact not only ocean creature but a literal land shark. It treated the earth and molten expanse like it were the ocean and quickly traversed the earth at a speed faster than it could on foot. This was done by utilizing his most renowned ability. By converting his bioforce into a variation of specialized seismic waves he could direct vibrations down to the very molecules that construct everything of this world. Through this, he traveled through hard substances by simply weaving through the molecules around him. Theoretically, this could even be done even in the air but going through solid masses made it that much more effective.

Megalodon and his partner navigated through every attempt to seize them with ease because, for a brief time, nothing could physically touch him. It wasn’t until he erupted from the earth in the middle of the sky once more where fatigue began to somewhat take a toll on Amphiprioninae specifically.

Floating within the sky via propulsion systems, Amphiprioninae and his partner weighed their options. Their thought process was cut short by the ridiculous series of events soon to occur. He didn’t even get a chance to begin before thane’s massive body began pulling the very grounds they fought on. He was acting without reason. From there he could see that Thane was in pain mentally and physically. He was confused, enraged. He would get to the bottom of this but once again his attention was disrupted. The entire Entropic Passages had erupted like a volcano, sending earth as high as the eyes could see. The catalyst for such an angry outburst was none other than a herald who was away in slumber awaiting this very day.

The symbiotic pair watched on as he began to rant. The manner in which the herald addressed his race was rather brash. He had a clear superiority complex. Megalodon had no reason to fear him in the slightest. Especially considering above all things they were allies. The emerged herald was unpredictable. Amphiprioninae only observed to see if he could manage to take more volatile turn. To his surprise, he did and even freed Disciple from his prison in the process. How this was done made absolutely no sense to him and his partner considering only they and Caorthannach knew what previously occurred in Val’gara space. He obviously didn’t read their minds so Amphiprioninae was mildly impressed.

With the arrival of the formerly imprisoned mouthpiece they originally thought the awakened herald would take his side but instead, he took the opportunity to attempt a killing blow at his very much weakened superior. How dishonorable. Even in this state Disciple was not one to be underestimated. Caorthannach knew this, and so he was kept under wraps. His fellow herald figured otherwise apparently.

From there he began to address them all individually, and that’s where even more confusion sprang from. He had no respect for anyone else and that was clear, but who was he other than another Herald to Megalodon at this moment. The duo would not believe otherwise simply because he said so. In fact, Amphiprioninae at this point was convinced he was delusional. All of his empty claims delegitimized him to them at least with every second that went by. Somehow, he even made the false claim that heralds converted by Anathema were superior to the rest. Blasphemy. They would not blindly become idolaters to such a creature. If he wanted respect he would have to earn it. The only reason why they, as a unit abided to Caorthannach was simply because they agreed that Singar must be pursued.

Averting his attention from him, Megalodon watched Thane. While the clownfish kept an eye on the herald and yet another Val'gara arrival from the back of his bowl, they raced in the direction of Thane’s flowing flesh. They did so without even giving him a response because frankly, they could formally address him later if need be.

Thier mindset simply was “stay out of our way and we will do the same.” They had a lot to do. But what was happening with thane was far more important to them.

Was the Stalker angry? Was he upset? Had he been driven mad with rage? Certainly. During his time within the third circle of Hell, the Herald had been battered by Gluttony’s pelting rain and hail in a relentless assault. Each chunk of ice that smashed against his face chipped away at his soul. Each revolting wail emitted from the mouth of a tormented slob, slothing around, crawling around, and rolling around in a sea of putrefaction disgusted him to his core. A simple touch from those freaks bothered him in a way that was beyond his ability to handle, not because they did something fiendish to him, but because of the simple absence of warmth.

Above all things, what Thane - not the Stalker - craved most was family, communion, and loyalty. Narcissus defecated on his feelings through the crimes he committed against family. Idea’s death… though Thane knew it came from an act of self-sacrifice for the sake of His children, He had ultimately shattered the communion by inadvertently destroying the very foundation of Unity: Himself. Isaak, Caitlyn, Hellion, Carnus, the Chrysaor, and their leader - Azaroth trampled upon the face of Colossus, and severed their last bonds of loyalty by dividing the Cataclysm.

Still, the Stalker was not without his fair share of blame. Somehow, Singar had provided him with a way out of Hell, an escape from the harshness of Gluttony, and a chance to aid his family. Instead of controlling himself, instead of formulating a plan through which to punish those treacherous bastards, who dared to desecrate the last surviving home of the Val’gara... instead of owning up to his title as the ultimate predator, he allowed fear to flood his perception. The fear led to the resurrection of those things - which for the longest time - remained dormant within his bloodstream, beyond the reach of the vesuvian virus... the nanomachines awakened and the ley-lines were brought back online…

For the second time, he had used them to aid himself, and for the first time he had done so subconsciously. Perhaps that lack of conscious utilization was what led to the opening of that portal, to the traversal of that tunnel, the cosmic sewer where other worlds, other times, other places that he and the Val’gara had yet to see overlapped. Or was it the ley-lines forcing them to overlap? The Stalker did not know which, but what he did know was that the experience had been chaotic, that it had been confusing, that it had been jarring and perplexing, that the Shadow he encountered, the Dragon who had spoken its words of grating motivation.

He remembered it referring to him as a Predator of The Night.

He recalled it questioning his will to fight.

He felt the uneasy ebb of death fading away into obscurity, the blight-stained soul screaming of how it was going to enter a realm of perfect security, and then he took the message without scrutiny, and slammed that fucking worldship right down ontop of Colossus’ head with a rage that had been with naught but impunity.

The Stalker had to make things right.

The self-proclaimed Will of Idea berated the Stalker for its "failure" to apprehend Hellion, a mission he hadn't even begun to contemplate, let alone start to plan out. In the Herald’s mind, capturing a wayward soldier paled in the face of a more demanding mission. Thane’s immediate agenda was the replenishment of Val'gara numbers, the restoration of the Cataclysm, and reclamation of their title as the dominant species of the universe. Already, he had established dominion over a substantial portion of Liaita; in his fight with Ceasar Kong, the Stalker took that which festered within the mountain range and expanded it via a network of flesh-made rivers, all of which flowed out from the Lake of Flesh itself. Those who stood in the way, but were deemed worthy of assimilation became infected with the vesuvian virus, and those who weren’t got smothered and absorbed into the growth, their bodies providing nourishment for the next generation. The rivers branched eastward, through soil, rock and root, uplifting the very terrain with their tumorous growth before finally bursting out of the oceanside bluffs.

No apology, no explanation, no pleas for mercy would be given out to this impostor, to this fake authority. The Stalker was bent - hellbent on rectifying his mistake, and this was but the first of many steps on his path to redemption, and no authority, fake or not could deter him from seeing the task through to the end.

And so it was that not the Stalker, not Thane, not even the HERALD, but the LAKE OF FLESH and all who had been born from it growled, snarled, seethed, and bled with hunger that could not be abated. All of the fibrous strands of flesh composing the lakes, rivers, and flesh-falls pouring into the ocean flexed with tension, slowly undulated, and violently spasmed, releasing a pulsating wave which traveled underground, back toward the rock in the center. Gradually, the remonstrations escalated in loudness and pitch, rose in tempo, and commenced a cacophonous assault of psychic fury that was not muffled due to the psionic waves traveling beneath the Midnight Fog, and whose physical counter-part ravaged Liaita’s face if such a thing was even possible at this point given the ruthless beating she endured, courtesy of her own child.

“Truly a lamb of Idea… Letting you be consumed by that Dreadnaught was certainly worth my while, Thane…” The words came out of the Corruptor’s mouth in a rather matter-of-fact tone, making no reservations to who or what heard them across the aether.

Then, he turned his attention to the Will of Idea, who he had most certainly heard, for no one screams that loud at such close proximity to a being who had been designed - not assimilated, not retrofitted with Vesuvian might, and not blindly bamboozled by self-delusions of grandeur - but created from scratch to live and breathe as a being meant to guide and influence others. Staring at the hand of his Father sinking into the Lake of Flesh, he wondered just how true his design function was, but quickly cast the thought out of his mind in favor of a much grander thought, and with that casting, he cast his own psychic line out, though this time he made sure to erect a barrier of crimson text through which his voice navigated out through. He had felt something try to shove against his mental faculties, apparently its will was strong enough to resist the Midnight Fog, and one could never be too careful around those sorts of things. The barrier he had erected was visible on both the physical and psychic planes, broadcasting a clear warning to any who would seek to dominate or otherwise try to assault him.

“A child is ill-suited to scolding other children, and is nothing more than a childish attempt at puffing out one’s chest, in a poor attempt to don the disguise of the superior adult.”

Blood is thicker than water, flesh composes blood, and so it can be assumed through simple observation that flesh is thicker than both. Still, flesh felt water’s icy touch, and flesh shivered at the unpleasant sensation, its thickness not sufficient enough to prevent its cold touch from reaching through, instilling a futile attempt at maintaining stillness so as to retain heat. Blood pumped faster through a vast network of hearts, but flesh bled profusely due to wounds sustained on the jags and crags of rocks hidden underwater, attracting the ocean’s countless predators who sought to feed on flesh after smelling blood.

Creatures fed, blood bled, a virus was passed through the blood, and into new flesh, flesh that stopped feeding on flesh, and whose collective conscious began to collectively coalesce around a corpse of flesh recently flung into the flesh-infested waters. Like the others who came before it, this creature whose face resembled that of a seahorse, whose shoulders resembled those of a cephalopod beak, and whose tentacles lined with bristles resembling that of a squid pierced and synchronized with the Cataclysm once more as it had done before.

Its authority, his authority, the Colossal authority, the OFFICIAL authority who had been chosen not by vote, or by declaration, but by virtue of BIRTH, a birth preordained by the Husband of Colossus, by the Will of Idea.

“The Voice of Colossus, of Mother, of Wife to Idea, of Love of the Father whose will was not written, and whose disappointing son has forged words in his name, but not of his will, making the will a lie, committer of a crime, and a fool meant to die…

RISE, DISCIPLE!”

And it was so, that Disciple rose out of the ocean, not as a puny, squirming microphone that had been tossed, flipped, kicked, and bitchslapped around, but as something that fed on flesh, on Thane’s flesh, on the flesh of an angry, upset, pissed off predator. Roughly the size of the boulder Singar stood on, which was easily the size of a small mountain given that it was a literal cave system carved out of Hell and plopped down atop the Lake of Flesh, Disciple hovered across the rising and falling waves, traversing over the cliffs, through the forest where his tentacles dragged through soil, hooked on bark, and uprooted yet more trees as he approached the epicenter of the unfolding chaos.

Finally, it neared the boulder, and began to speak, looking Singar directly in the eye, its bugle expanding and contracting though projecting no actual sound, but rather served as a visual indicator of psychic speech.

“Stalker.” Came its first word, calm, controlled, and quite peaceful. “Given your state of… temporary insanity, and subsequent attempt at atoning for your sins by creating a new army, and using your very own flesh as a medium to revive me, I offer you heartfelt forgiveness.”

The growling, snarling, seething, and bleeding flesh slowly ceased its movements, at last reaching a state of ease.

“Know, however, that while forgiveness is earned, it can just as easily be blundered, so hold your mind close to your heart, and do not allow yourself to fall from grace again.”

A brief pulse resonated throughout the Lake of Flesh, and it once again ceased movement.

Disciple then turned its attention to Megalodon and Amphriprioninae, its tentacles straightening out into a shape resembling sharply angled wings. “You came following the orders of Coarthannach. Her authority is false, her wisdom is misguided, and if she is allowed further sanction to operate her devices, she will bring even greater ruin to the Val’gara.

"No matter how angry you are with me, you know for a fact, that I was not the one who crashed that ship into Colossus. It was the Stalker who did that, and I will make absolutely sure that he is not only reprimanded in full for his actions, but works until his very soul can work no more to restore our flock to its former greatness.”

Turning again, its tentacles became rather droopy, demonstrating its clear vexation, though when it looked this…abomination in the eye, rather than assuming a state of contempt, Disciple instead nodded with a rather unexpected look of approval.

“Congratulations. You snapped the neck of a Herald who had already been fatigued by a mental struggle with the heretic called Coarthannach.” Disciple spread his tentacles wide, “You have so much potential, and you waste it by acting a self-endorser to your own desire for power, and instead seek to demonstrate your might through physical force.

Know that it is my job not to fight, but to convince, to speak to the Herald’s and other Sons of Idea’s senses of reason. A powerful psychic I am, and for a moment I thought I felt Val’garans from other worlds scattered across the cosmos re-awaken, reforge their bonds, and preach the great mantra that is convert, consume, control…

Yet, standing before you now, all of those voices, all of those thoughts, all those desires, have once again fizzled out, for while you possess great power, it is as I said to the Collective back on Colossus.

“You tried to convert your lowly position as an unknown Herald into that of the voice of IDEA!

“From the moment of your birth, you have been consumed in your lust for power, and seek to command the same military respect as BROBDINGNAG!

“Lastly, the only person you can control is yourself, and know that I cannot control anyone, merely convince, guide, and offer heartfelt aid to our beloved brothers and sisters.”

Nearly finished, he turned his attention down to the true perpetrator of all this chaos, the one who had consumed the hand of a god, and with but a single word of pure, utter disappointment, summed up the entirety of his emotions.

“...Narcissus…”

At long last, he brought his attention back to Singar, and without saying a word, made his message crystal clear.

Corruptor smiled a genuine, graceful, amicable smile as if he were looking upon the face of an old friend, and for a moment the Runic Strings composing his barrier loosened, then quickly resealed.

“The being who dwells inside this rock is Satan, Chief Sinner of Treachery, Brother to myself, and Brother to Magnus, who is the Val’gara’s creator. I am here to offer you an alliance. This universe is full of fools, idiots, races who do not deserve to live. The Val’gara claim to maintain cosmic consonance by pruning the tree of life in the form of harvesting mother nature’s most delectable crops. Your race has clearly seen better days, and it is my desire that those days be seen again.

I offer you Satan, who is arguably far stronger, and far greater than myself and Magnus combined, as he would make not only a valuable power-asset to the Val’gara but a rare and valuable strategic commodity. As a show of good faith, I have taken the liberty of safeguarding the soul of Colossus inside a duplicate sword and scabbard of mine and stored her someplace safe.

“That safe place” Singar restated for reassurance, “is located on a planet called Itan, and once the Sword of Colossus is found, it will be used to convert the world. I would have given you the Sword myself, but while it is my goal to aid the Val’gara it is not my goal to become one. Cosmic consonance will be maintained, but I cannot do so as a full-fledged Herald, given that the Vesuvian Virus has a habit of...ridding oneself of their independence, to which had I not possessed, I would surely have never made it this far in the first place.”

“A strange offer, indeed,” Disciple thought, “no one has ever wished to help the Val’gara and not become one at the same time…”

Unfortunately for Disciple, he wasn’t the only one thinking, nor was he the only thing listening. The nanomachines had been listening too, through the ley-lines that had been spreading down to the core of Soran to meet the thing which threatened to convert, consume, and control the planet until there was nothing left but an empty husk. Metal Mayhem heard the threat, Metal Mayhem had been delivered to the beast through the nanoscopic metal warriors that couldn’t be seen, even as a plume, for their color was crimson, just like flesh, just like blood, just like that which tore through the mud, spilled into the ocean, and provided fresh nutrients for all of its inhabitants.

Metal Mayhem didn’t like this, and so it would inflict Metal Mayhem upon the beings who threatened its world, just as Agron and Sarach had not yet given up on fighting. Agron’s blue aura waned, dissipated, and sank back into its own body, where it was then replaced by a different aura which rapidly surged throughout the soil, smashing directly against the Stalker’s conscience in a direct spiritual assault. Like flesh, Agron bled a red aura, and this aura existed on a half-physical half-ethereal plane, meaning it could touch objects, be they corporeal or incorporeal, and was precisely what Sarach had launched at Megalodon and his partner Amphriprioninae at the start of their fight, thus they would not simply be able to swim through and escape as easily as they had just done not a few minutes ago.

Presently, Agron was busy spreading the aura as far and as wide as possible, melting the terrain into a sea of molten rock that was lifted, heaved, and hurled forward as a literal seismic toss, resulting in a massive tidal wave of red-aura empowered lava that would wreak not only physical devastation but mental trauma on any living beings it impacted. This was not the only threat, for in ripping apart its adversary Sarach, it had activated one of its natural processes as a living organism, and would soon be reaping rewards for its violent tendencies.

Similar to its cousin Agron who reproduced by shattering its own conscience into multiple shards, that would - in time accumulate their own sentience, sapience, and independence, thus - allowing them to spread those shards across the multiverse and continue to propagate its existence. Sarach was a different matter however, for where Agron could break its body apart, and fight through lesser, weaker proxy versions of itself that could eventually recombine - hence why it was able to surround the serpent as a form of dust particulates not needing a single, solid body to maintain its existence and attack Megalodon, the Rock Serpent of Soran could not perform such a feat. To break apart Sarach's body was to trigger its reproductive process, to divide itself into lesser, weaker, newborn Sarachi.

In other words, Agron reproduced by fracturing its spirit and regenerating those fragments over time like an amobea, allowing them to grow, and Sarach took it a step further by fracturing its physical body and allowing that to grow into a stronger, mightier beast. Ripping apart their bodies was not enough, to kill something like Agron or Sarach, one had to annihilate the spirits, for the bodies were just that: bodies, vessels, shells used to interact with the physical plane.

It was as such that within that molten wave, fresh offspring of Sarach had been born, ripped apart by the Sharkborg itself, and now writhed violently within the molten wave. Though smaller than their predecessor, these Sarachi were by no means slouches, though due to their lack of capacity toward independent thought, they instead relied on their older, more experienced cousin Agron to direct their attacks. Like massive slug rounds, their rocky exterior compacted upon itself, condensed, and spawned serrated edges along their sides, each charged with the Red Aura, compressing it into a blade that would allow it to slice and peel away at Amph and Megalodon's spirit, should they meet the charge head-on, proving that it could do more than simply slam, smash, and pummel.

It was a dual-edged attack on the part of both cousins who were determined to see this battle through to the end.

The tidal wave was fast approaching, and yet there was something even faster moving, ripping its way through the rivers of flesh, the saw which lined its thirty-eight foot tail buzzing loudly, angrily, as it coursed with lightning which pulsed throughout the flesh, delivering one jolting shock after the next, eliciting an enraged roar of fury from the Stalker. Currently, only the horns of the monster could be seen protruding out through the fleshy rivers as it sped toward its destination, a constant stream of red particulates coming out of its horns.

Acquiring Targets:

4 Val’gara Heralds Present.
1 hypothesized to be of Soranian, and specifically Niraan descent.
1 of Terran descent, though lacks typical signs of Val’gara brainwave functions.
1 Full fledged Val’gara emanating considerable psychoelectric frequency.
1 Full fledged Val’gara emitting brain-wave patterns associated with schizophrenia.

2 Divine beings, 1 currently in a state of dormant slumber.

2 Creatures Indigenous to Soran, not baring Val’garan psychic signature, though emitting strong spiritual energy in line with those emitted by combatants of a similar ethereal nature.

Suggested Action: Activate Protomagenetic Cannon...

What the disciple of Idea expressed was correct. “No one has ever wished to help the Val’gara and not become one,” but in reference to the intrinsic nature of the Val’gara, no one has ever had the luxury of choosing. Throughout history, they had one mission, one goal, and one purpose. When were they ever complacent in any venture? The dependence on other races needed to end. It could all be solved with one action, one decision, and one order.

Turning back to the creature that symbolized the mouthpiece, Megalodon and his counterpart were mystified. Not because he should have been slain, but because they were torn. Before Caorthannach there was the Disciple, but in this instance, he overlooked the meddling nature of a literal demon. This was incomprehensible. Who should the duo pledge their allegiance to? They should not have to choose. In one final outcry, Amphriprioninae spoke out of exasperation.

“Disciple, can you not see? Can you not sense the foulness in intent the oozes from each pour of his devilish body? No need to leave it to chance. There should be no reason why you don’t take this fiend and bring him to your knees, bend him to the will of Idea and reconcile your sins by giving the control of the Val’gara back to us. Take control as only you can. With four heralds by your side, call upon the first unified harvest since Idea abandoned us. It is our will, it is our destiny. We must take Soran!”

Whereas the fish eagerly awaited a response, Megalodon appeared to be withholding some sort of pain. There was a clear sense the creature was holding something in. The stress, the strain, it was getting to him. His suffrage was in fact choreographed by his partner in attempt to gain footing. A disturbance was present within the belly of the marine beast. The void within him housed an array of things. Many of which, were gathered throughout his journey through colossus’ core. A school of once-dormant cnidarian invertebrates received the signal they had been searching for.

Megalodon opened his maw to considerable lengths, regurgitating an upsurge of living organisms. Amphriprioninae retrieved a sea of Val’garan Brainsramblers from his counterpart’s stomach. There was nothing, and then there were at least thirty of these jellyfish surrounding the Herald in an instant. The Brainscramblers in sync with his mind quickly gained a sense of the world and situation they were in. Due to their innate ability to locate sources of psionic and ethereal power, it made countering the rampant beasts more than manageable. Without delay, a powerful field in all directions projected within a ten-kilometer radius from the cluster, disrupting and distorting the psionic senses, abilities, and powers of everything unrelated to the hive mind. This part-ethereal part-psionic EMP whisked away all concentration Agron and Sarach could muster. Even if their attack did not fizzle away, they would lack the ability to get near Megalodon as a moving target. They or any other lingering entity would be able to properly target the duo. Even without their presence, at basis Megalodon was simply faster, and given his distance simply lead them on an endless chase.

"Caorthannach are you watching?"

No, Amphriprioninae was alone. And thus, the future of the Val’gara weighed on the disciple’s decision. He harkened to what was about to be said. Much alluded to an answer the fish did not desire to hear. Much alluded to tragedy… Much alluded to a transfer of power that would be felt across the entirety of the multiverse.

Distance decreased with every swish, slash, and sawing swing of the beast's tail--flesh, rock, and dirt rent apart as a mist that was sprayed across the edges of the gash left in its wake. The crimson particulates which spewed from his horns gathered, accumulated, and churned into a monstrous cloud of nanomachines, forming a stark contrast of color between it and the Fog which hovered above, foretelling the source of the violence which swam beneath the Lake of Flesh. Gradually, the cloud--guided along the air-currents by will alone, shaped itself a pair of wings, a lengthy tail appendage, horns, and a pair of crimson and sapphire eyes, creating a metal specter that roared at everything and discriminated against nothing.

It was angry. Far angrier than Megalodon and Amphriprioninae who, in their self-righteous fury, released a swarm of Brainscramblers through which they sought to cripple their foes minds. It was far more vindictive than Singar, whose face became a sneer as the runic strings he had erected as a barrier against psychic assault not only stood strong, but expanded and pushed back against the psionic shock-wave, the red text which composed it merging to form a solid wall of impenetrable red ether. Its insufferable rage far exceeded the petty paroxysm bellowed forth by the Will of Idea, whose presence was on Soran it tracked, chased, and encircled through not only its ley-lines, but the viridian scars which ran along his forelimbs.

Meanwhile, Disciple, as everyone else who had been too caught up in their personal vendettas answered the Herald and his Clownfish companion. "What I know is that he preserved what little was left of Colossus after the Stalker smashed our mother to pieces."
He said with mourning as he looked upon the rumbling Lake of Flesh. "I also know that you failed to prevent Mire from delivering the finishing blow when she crashed into our mother as well." He spoke again with a tone that betrayed his disappointment. "I know that I too have failed, for I was unable to anticipate these catastrophes, and therefore the burden of rectification falls upon my shoulders." The last words came out with a distinct aura of shame which ironically seemed to reinforce the Disciple's resolve.

It was with those last words, that the rock of Cocytus cracked, splintered, and collapsed in on itself, and the Vesuvian Storm thundered and struck at the debris, its viral lightning breaching the boulders depths, where it began to infect the Original Sinner who had been buried beneath the rubble.

The chaos had finally reached its climax point. During the time it took for the Heralds to plead with Disciple to change his mind, for the army of Brainscramblers to arise, and for Singar to defend himself against their psionic attack, the Raging Singularity had come to within a mile of the carnage, and was preparing to attack. With its head fully submerged within the rivers leading to the Lake of Flesh, the crackling sphere of magically empowered protons was utterly invisible within its jaws, the sheer amount of radiation it contained causing a cancerous onset to suddenly and malignantly afflict the area around it with mutagenic disease.

Without hesitation, Taluge-X careened his head in a vicious arc, rose its upper-body up out of the lake and fired a proton-wrapped beam of radioactive ether, that toxified the air as it was incinerated, vaporize all matter in its path, and drain all the electro-psionic energy emitted from the Brainscramblers into its own mass via mass via simple electromagnetic and electromagenetic attraction.

The root of shame is not personal, it is the ignominy, and the humiliation felt when we must be what we are without any choice in the matter. This humiliation is seen by everyone. Though many rejoiced, the Val’gara would never become what they were destined to be and in many ways, this was sad. The aspiration of assimilation was over. In the eyes of the Disciple, the ideology of Idea was just one, never to be fulfilled, at least not anymore. The ambition, never to be rekindled again was slain even before the death of Colossus. In her place, Caorthannach remained. As stubborn as she was, she knew. The will of the daughter was not the mothers, but in her mourning, she tried anyway. Though morally incensed, she would fail. They all would, as long as they continued to fight, but this was the only future ahead of them. This was now…

Though dishonored, the double-layered words of Disciple subsisted. Megalodon heard these words. The multiple entendre of messages veiled within Disciple’s speech placed his against Amphiprioninae’s. With this, the shark no longer knew who was right. He was distressed, troubled, confused even. With two feuding voices in opposite corners of his head, he couldn’t take it, completely abandoning the Brainscramblers, leaving them to be dealt with by the vaporizing blast. No one could see where he was after it's mad dash across the continent, but the mouthpiece understood exactly what was to be done. The indidious seed planted by him stirred a conflict that interfered with the foundation of the symbiotic pair’s relationship. Amphriprioninae could not calm the shark; he could not influence him in the slightest. He could not control Megalodon.

His words affected one side of the herald’s mind but Disciple occupied the other. In this instance, it was unclear to Amphriprioninae why Disciple even allowed him in as he was revitalized, undistracted and strong, but the answer was quite clear. In Megalodon’s confused state, like a trapped animal he was, he would do anything to escape. Anything ironically, as Disciple understood, could only lead to one thing. With his strategic twisting of the knife, the shark's mental torment continued. The cerebral tug of war had to end and it would find a way.

Clenching the dome on its head, Megalodon let out a roar that exhibited great pain, confusion, and misery. This was not what he or they were supposed to be. Made to fight, born for war. He wanted to be great. He wanted to carry out Idea’s will. He wanted above all else to do as he was designed to but never had he the opportunity to so. His potential would go unfulfilled. His introspection led him to understand the unfair reality before him, adding to his already heightened hysteria.

The marine monster's claws scraped against the container, digging into the perceived glass of the bowl. With a yank capable of tugging a mountain, he pulled the bowl from his partner’s psychic grip. Looking into the cold eyes of Amphriprioninae, the creature only sought to rid himself of the mental battleground that was his mind. He needed silence and upon the shattering of the bowl, he received it, submerging himself into the depths of the dimension within. A literal ocean that felt welcoming. One that shielded him from the reality the Herald sought so hard to escape from. An ocean in which allowed him to be free. And there, he slept, perhaps to never be awoken again...

In his wake, only a puddle remained.