XianaEvermor

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

"Shakshouka?" Yue asked, in a distracted tone, as she tried to pay attention to multiple conversations. She reached up and casually plucked the medallion out of the air with two fingers as though it were moving in slow motion. It uttered a metallic chime, like a tuning fork that had been struck against a table, which made Yue flinch and caused Archer to raise an eyebrow.

"Don't you need eggs for that?" Yue paused, watching tendrils of [Crimson], which had thinned in consistency and color enough for threads of [Silver] to shine through she noticed, rushed into the medallion. "You're not gonna use monster eggs are you?!" The note of panic in her voice overrode her curiosity for a split second. Yue raised an eyebrow as the medallion seemed to grow hot in her hand, and she squinted as the designs and etchings flared to life, and her gaze flicked over to Zolya to try and see what exactly she was doing.

"I don't-"

"Look at that, you're a natural!" Archer interrupted, flicking his finger against her temple. She expected to feel his finger thud against her skin and the accompanying prickle of numbness from a muted pain signal. Instead she was treated to a deep, drum-like thud and a ripple of movement over some... film of [Force] that had materialized over her skin. The medallion flared brighter, and threads of [Crimson-Silver] rushed into it afterwards.

"I... didn't do anything though? That's just what happens when I touch things."

"That's the Sword Song reacting to resonance from an enchanted item," Archer smiled, pushing himself to his feet and taking a moment to smooth out his Final Odyssey pajamas, which were speckled with chibi-anime representations of many of the different iconic classes. "The real trick will be learning how to turn it off," chirped Archer smugly, with far too much amusement in his voice as he trotted towards the kitchen after Raudd. "I'll help!"

Yue blinked, squinting at the medallion as she tried to process what, exactly, he had meant by that. Her gaze snapped up to Zolya, mild horror spreading across her face as she came to the realization that she could, in fact, not "turn it off."

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

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[Templar Tower - 52nd Floor - Castle on the Clouds]

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Castle on the Clouds. Possibly the finest diner in the tower. Dawn sat on an enormous balcony protruding from the side of the tower at a table with a yellow umbrella. A dome of transparent-aluminum encircled the vista, perfectly visually corrected so as not to distort the view. Her table was centered on a circular marble dais connected to a winding path which led back towards the restaurant interior. Surrounding the marble was more transparent-aluminum, giving the illusion of a marble rampart sitting in the sea of clouds below.

Her own, personal Mt. Olympus... Insomuch as a restaurant table could be personal at least.

Dawn's golden eyes gazed out at the dappled orange and gold clouds as the sun was just beginning to crest them. She delicately poured cream into her steaming cup, circling the edges, a little shimmy, and finally slice through the middle. Dawn frowned.

OK, so she was bad at this, and it just looked like a cloud of light brown coffee with too much cream. Hmph! The server had made it look so easy when she'd ordered her first cup. When nobody was looking, she dipped one of her nails into the liquid and with a jolt of mana, the cream separated and formed into a stylized sun surrounded by a laurel wreath.

She snapped a picture with a smirk. #FirstTry.

Why here? Right now? This instant, as she was ignoring an "urgent" text from Ares? Dawn was a "Precognitive." She knew things before they happened... in a sense. It was a fickle thing: not so much visions or even precise instructions just... like a strong gut feeling that something would go her way if she did a certain thing.

It had its limits... She couldn't will it to happen, for one, which was incredibly inconvenient at times. The subject of the premonition had to be directly connected to her in some way, and... leaning in to her epithet "Averter of Evil" generally her premonitions had to do with her safety... or the safety of someone close to her.

Iridescence glimmered across her golden eyes, and she picked up her phone just as it chirped.

Felix: Hey, don’t scream! Also good morning!

"Speak of the Devil," she muttered, sipping her coffee and laying her phone down gently.

Dawn scooted her seat over a few feet to her left, taking a moment to smooth out her blouse and skirt, and straighten her hair before she held her arm out to the side with her fingers splayed wide. Moments later Felix appeared in a shower of candlelight sparks, chest pressed against her hand. She maintained contact just long enough to renew the exclusion seal she'd put on him the day previous, and then gestured to the other seat at her table.

"Sit," she smiled, sipping her coffee and then crossing her legs. A glass of ice water was waiting for him, with a small saucer of lemon wedges and a bottle of pomegranate juice. Judging by the condensation on the glass, it couldn't have been served more than a few minutes previous. "I'm supposed to be in the CEO's office right now," she chirped. Her phone vibrated, as if on queue: another text message from "Corpo Asshole."

"Wanna know why I'm not there? A little bird told me you'd be trying something dumb," she explained without waiting for a response, and then just raised an eyebrow at him over the rim of her cup.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Jade made a noise. A rising, wavering wail of insecurity and doubt as Jemma plodded towards her. Jade squished herself against the wall like a nervous rodent, trying (unsuccessfully) to maintain the distance between them, and when that didn't work, scrunching her eyes closed against the inevitability until... *CRACK!* Tufts of fur and splintered bone showered the bed as invisible blades clawed for purchase, scouring the surface of her chitinous armored hide. Wolf barely spared them a glance, apparently much less concerned after Jemma's head grew back the last time.

It would be nice to have someone else around besides Violet that could withstand physical contact with the girl.

"A cybernetics expert?" Chimed Vi in mechanical monotone to Jemma's questions.

"The best," Wolf nodded over the rim of her cup. The metallic chitter rose up in either excitement or agitation before dying back down.

"I'll take it under advisement...," she announced flatly, standing in silence for a long moment like there was more to say before she turned on her heels and walked away down the hall. Her half cloak billowed just enough to reveal the stump of her right arm, which looked as though it had been severed just above the armpit. A small chiropteran drone chittered at them, clawing its way up her rib cage and roosting in the open joint brace. A few others wrapped around her torso shifted as her cloak came back down.

Jade was frozen against the wall, eyes screwed shut against the physical contact and couldn't help but squeak as Jemma's tongue rasped against her skin. A flurry of psionic wind scythed around it, whistling through the segmented plates and searching for flesh. Wolf covered the top of her thermos to protect her coffee from the spray of bone dust. A smile cracked the corners of her lips: Vi had taken a similar shine to the girl.

"Take out? O-Once a month... m-maybe?"

“Speaking of which! Hey! Wolf! Hey! Hey hey hey hey—” Wolf squinted at the... appendage, finding a break in the spray of fur, chitinous dust, and bone fragments to steal a slurp from her thermos. She wasn't sure which end to address, and ultimately settled for the one that was talking. “So can I, like… Leave? Or whatever? You didn’t necessarily make it super clear so…?”

"Leave? Sure. You're free to come and go as you please, just like everyone else. Just respect the airlock: keeping signals and signatures inside The Den helps keep everyone safe," she explained, gesturing down the hall after Vi with her cup. She dug around in one of her pouches and held out a small chip that looked like it had been torn out of a slate phone and kitbashed together with a nano-scale E-Cell.

"Keep this in your...," she was going to say "pocket." "Uh. Keep this... with... you. It'll let you back in whenever you want. In an emergency you can crush it, and we'll come running."

"You should also know," Wolf added, almost as an afterthought. "I haven't told anyone in ShieldTown that you're back, or about... the changes. I can if you want me to."

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

ID turned towards the suited giant as she gave the countersign, remaining quiet until she approached. The gentle hum of the compressor beneath her cloak complimented the snowfall for a long moment. It clicked off and the over-pressure of hot gas hissed out of the nostrils of ID's red dragon mask in a voluminous cloud.

She wasn't surprised that MG wasn't waiting exactly where she expected. The merc was clever and careful... and her heavily insulated suit interfered with ID's [Dreamsight], so picking her out as a living signature amongst all the background noise was next to impossible.

"The official report is that I ran into the Queen of Swords and went out of my way to avoid a confrontation," she explained, pulling her hood back and flapping it against her shoulders to remove any gas that had become trapped in it. That's how hair became singed. "Eventful evening too... Off the record," ID added with a huff, as she began the trudge towards the area of the Graves that dropped off into the inky darkness between land, and the Tower's massive sub-structure.

Besides Mother, MG was the only other person in the organization she regularly let her hair down around. In part this was due to the number of operations they'd done together. MG's ability made her the only operative in the entire organization that could work in close proximity to her. ID could be unguarded without worrying that a flash of emotion would irrevocably maim the woman... and the fact that she didn't treat ID like some kind of untouchable eidolon had endeared her to the merc.

"Met some boys in ShieldTown... a geokinetic prankster, and his... friend," ID hesitated, and the snow sizzled under her feet for a moment. She rolled her eyes after a minute, knowing MG wouldn't leave that alone... not after the telltale flash of heat at least.

"I'm pretty sure he invited me over intentionally so that I would catch an eyeful of the dense slab of muscle that lives with him for his own entertainment. I made some promises I probably shouldn't have, and stayed for breakfast," she explained evasively.

ID led them deep into the graves until it became nearly too steep to traverse in the icy conditions. The ground dropped away into the abyss ahead of them not a hundred feet away where it became a near sheer cliff leading down into depths unknown. She paused, pulling on a thread of mana and feeling it traverse through her body and sear uncomfortably behind her left eye and deep into her skull. The steady snowfall slowed to an absolute crawl as she rolled the thread of mana over and between her fingers.

An ethereal library of books and documents manifested in her vision, and she swished through the miles of stacks with a near imperceptible flick of her fingers. 'The Waking World Explained', translated. 'The Secret of Mana', original. 'Perils of the Astral Sea', second edition copy. ID flicked her fingers. Archives. Designs. Weapons and Equipment. Flick. Blueprints. Facility Schemata. Muriel Containment Laboratory.

ID tucked her thumb gently under the thread of mana, tugging the array out into a one handed cradle. The blueprint seared into her eye, and she dismissed the archive. ID had mentioned to Zolya that anything could be enchanted using her technique. It wasn't a false claim, you just needed some creativity, a little out of the box thinking, and some magics Mother warned her not to fool around with. Enchanting her mind with Menagerie's Archive was a brilliant, if impulsive idea that had nearly killed her. She wasn't entirely sure Mother knew what exactly she had done, but she'd been hospitalized for a month so Mother knew she was messing with something she shouldn't have.

The facility schemata was heavily redacted, but still contained useful information about its secret freight elevator and how to activate it, which she studied for a minute before releasing the [Enhanced Perception] Fortification. The blueprint stayed uncomfortably luminous in her eye.

"Looking for a keypad: it'll be covered and embedded in something that doesn't quite belong...," ID trailed off, scanning the area.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

"G-gold?!" Yue blanched, wide burgundy eyes flicking down to the last corner of toast perched between her fingers. At least ten seconds passed; from her perspective, twenty minutes of the mind-melting horror that 'Oh God, I just ate gold for a snack! I didn't even butter it, the decadence of this limited underground commodity was wasted on my bland taste! How am I ever going to pay this back?'

And then she finally looked up to see Raudd's mirthful expression.

Yue suppressed the urge to throw the book at him, remembering that the spooky tome was both invisible and intangible to the man, and would do naught but make her get up and fetch it from the other side of the room. Yue huffed, exhaling the breath she'd been holding after taking a moment to recompose herself and crunch the last corner of toast.

"Something like that. When I went looking for spells to learn I was basically told to 'figure it out' and 'good luck.' " she finally answered. "I guess I'm just having a hard time seeing the value of all this new information with no practical way to apply it, compared to the thing I can already do," she sighed, flipping her hair over one shoulder so she could braid it idly in thought.

"And no, I didn't sleep well. I have frequent night terrors. Normally I'd be logged in to Final Odyssey to keep my brain occupied while my body rests. Otherwise I thrash endlessly, wake up in sleep paralysis, or have my 'fight or flight' triggered hard enough to forget where I am. It's better for everyone if I don't sleep, in the traditional sense at least."

"Well, sorcery is an extremely personal journey for everyone," Archer quipped. He had appeared sitting next to her with her coffee in his hands, causing her to flinch and squeak. He stole a quick slurp from her cup and made a face. "You're a barbarian: no cream?"

"That's basically what the book said," she hissed, slapping him in the thigh with a frustrated huff. Archer giggled maniacally for a moment.

"I have a bad habit of repeating the words of other people, it seems," he smirked and endured her withering glare, stealing a second sip before he let her take the cup back.

"How long until this becomes something useful?"

"Depends on what you consider 'useful,'" he answered thoughtfully, rubbing at the stubble that was accumulating on his chin and neck with a distasteful expression. "My opinion, take it as you will, is that the 'thing you can do' already is very powerful, so maybe we focus on supplementing that by expanding your utility. Or shore up some of your weaknesses," he shrugged.

"Hmm," Yue grumbled, suppressing the urge to make a Final Odyssey comparison.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Jade was sitting up with her knees cradled to her chest, staring vacantly at some point past Jemma and Leah as the door opened. She was singing in Romanian as they tumbled in.

[...matches squeezed in my teeth
a weakness held in mirror walls
I bathe in
cold and sweat. I know that from here
I'll never get out
but with a bang
and with broken shards
I want to...]

She stopped abruptly after not seeming to notice them for far too long, and her emerald eyes flicked down to lock gazes with Leah. The whole room was heavy with silence for an uncomfortable eternity, Leah frozen in the middle of trying to wrestle the creature (unsuccessfully) out of the room.

"Its catchy," she explained. Jade blew a wisp of her auburn hair out of her face, and her gaze darted up to Jemma. "Your head grew back...," she whispered eerily, eyes wide, and her irises trembling unnaturally for a fraction of a second. A gust of wind picked up in the room, and then died down. Leah blew out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding and relaxed... well... as much as one could given the circumstances.

"Hmmm?" Wolf noted with a raised eyebrow from the periphery, cradling a tall, insulated thermos steaming with the aroma of fresh coffee. It was white, with "I need this long to be sociable" written in bold red letters across the front.

"Wolf, can you do something about this??"

"...Not my bear, not my circus," she muttered back, tapping the words on her thermos.

"WOLF!"

"How's your head?"

"What?" Wolf only nodded over Leah's shoulder while slurping coffee from her thermos. When the physician turned to look she ran into the tall, imposing, hooded figure behind her and squawked awkwardly in surprise as she nearly bounced off.

"Hurts," answered the figure mechanically, from the eyeless black and red kitsune mask. The slither and chitter of shifting metal rippled from beneath her clothes. Though she was perfectly still, from the sound of it, her body was in constant motion. She reached out with her spindly, talon-like fingers from the wide sleeve of her cropped robe to steady Leah. She handled the physician with almost unnatural care, and her sharp digits bent with far too many articulations to avoid cutting the woman, though her other arm remained hidden beneath the folds of her hooded half-cloak. "Sorry."

"Take the day off and get some rest," Wolf insisted. Leah seemed to deflate in exhaustion and nodded. Wolf smiled over the rim over her Thermos. "Page me if you need anything. I'll have it brought to you."

"Thanks," Leah sighed, and extricated herself from the scene as quickly as was polite.

"Violet?" Wolf raised an eyebrow when the hooded woman didn't leave. "That was sort of a general statement. How are you feeling?"

"Hungry." Wolf glanced at Jemma and Jade with a concerned expression for a fraction of a second before returning her attention to Violet.

"Maintenance protocols helping at all?"

"Little," Vi answered, shortly. As if to countermand her statement, a hitching click, and the slow grind of metal on metal slithered from beneath her cloak. "Slows the breakdown."

"I could call..."

"No," interrupted Vi. Her head didn't move, but somehow it was apparent that her gaze was sweeping over the present company. "I'm going to... get take out," she informed, to which Wolf sighed, looking thoughtfully at the floor for a long minute.

"Alright. You want aerial?" Vi shook her head softly. "I'll keep something on standby in case you run into trouble then. Be careful. Confirmed rumors of at least two Templar in the area."

All at once Violet was perfectly still, even the invisible constant slither of metal beneath her clothes suddenly stopped. For a long moment it was quiet enough to hear the soft hiss of Violet's cybernetic lungs forcing air into her frame followed by the slow gust of released carbon dioxide.

"History with the Silver one...," Jade had leaned over to whisper to Jemma, just a little too loudly. "'Take out' doesn't mean food," she continued. Wolf's eyebrows slowly lifted as she maintained what she believed to be eye contact with Violet. After a minute the cyborg's shoulders seemed to uncoil, and the slither of sliding metal resumed. Her head tilted just a little, and a soft giggle escaped her vox.

"Some things are meant to stay secret, little gem."

"Awwwww shit... did thoughts come out of my mouth again? I'm still melty from yesterday," Jade muttered, rubbing her temples. Wolf snorted, and nearly choked on her coffee.

"It's okay. I'll try not to cause too much trouble while I'm out."

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Sometimes it was better to just burn the bridge. ID wasn't sure this was one of those times yet, but running into the Queen of Swords in ShieldTown had definitely spooked her. Locklear was at least reasonable. If the Queen of Swords had recognized her, violence would have been unavoidable. Her errand to The Graves was looking more and more favorable in comparison. Pacts not withstanding, if the Queen of Swords intended to stay in ShieldTown for any length of time it might be better to break her promise to return to Dean in the evening... assuming her pact would even allow it.

She guessed it would depend on the Pact's interpretation of "Acting in the Best Interest of the Agreement" when it concerned the zealous Templar. Pact magic was so finicky.

ID's footfalls thumped heavily against the landscape, throwing up periodic plumes of dust. She wasn't moving at her top speed, but the Earth still flew beneath her in a blur. Occasionally a burst of vapor from her mask ignited in a flash of fire and black smoke as it passed through the heat-wake she left behind her. It wasn't subtle, but since ShieldTown and The Den were out of sight, she wasn't worried about being spotted, except maybe by Zolya's corvids.

They weren't supposed to intentionally follow her, and as long as she didn't draw too much open attention to herself news of her deeds shouldn't reach Zolya's ears. ID still detoured wide around them, even though it increased her travel time. By the time she hit the border of The Forges their presence had thinned out considerably, and the region's heat plume did a lot to hide her signature.

ID cut through the Graves region of the sector, keeping the terrain between her and the Black Castle as much as possible and pouring on the speed. Even if she attracted the attention of the resident Tinker and his crew, it was highly unlikely that they'd brave The Graves to give chase. She skipped over the surface of the rivers of molten rock and metal without care like a stone across water. If they did happen to look her way, it was more likely they'd mistake her for one of the Firetail Wyrms that lived in the region than identify her.

A [Dragonscale] Fortification protected her eyes and face from the heat and soot, and the ridges of her crimson scales glowed a dull orange as she crossed the border into the lush Temperate Zone. She dragged a plume of soot and smoke trailing from the cinders clinging to the melted hems of her cloak a half-mile beyond The Forges. Sector six was tranquil, as always, though ID still took care not to spread any unintentional fires.

There wasn't a lot of activity in the Temperate Zone. You either had to brave the smothering heat and toxic fumes of The Forges, or the unforgiving arctic conditions in the Frigid Wastes to get there. Inconvenient... or... convenient, depending on your perspective.

ID had to slow down and take a moment to smother her heat plume as she approached the rapidly cooling border of the Frigid Waste. If she wasn't careful she'd thermal shock a storm into existence, or have her position given away by a massive geyser of steam. The air condensed into voluminous clouds as it struck her hot skin regardless of her efforts, though the shrill wind made sure they were disbursed swiftly.

Rendezvous Delta. An outcropping of rock sheltering the entrance to a shallow ice cave twenty or so miles from the Abyss wall. ID was supposed to meet MG outside of ShieldTown, but she'd flagged the other agent off after running into the Queen of Blades and had them make their own way to the sector. It would have been nice to have a ride, but it wasn't worth the risk with the Templar around. Regardless, her detours had made her uncharacteristically late, and she was like to receive an earful from the merc.

"Surtr," she announced through her mask's vox-changer as she approached.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

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[March 12th, 2045 - 07:07am - Paradox - UnderCity - Stoneworks Interior]

[Day 2]

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The smell of fresh coffee and toast wafted through the manor. Yue had woken up ravenously hungry, far before anyone else after only grabbing a couple hours of fitful, dreamless sleep. She had ended up on the floor, sitting with her legs folded and her back to the Manor's enormous Cairn Stone. For some reason it stood out as the most natural place to sit and read a magic book.

Yue had opted to read the Silverscale Grimiore in real-time, even though she probably could have thoroughly studied the whole thing while Time Dilated in just a handful of minutes. The idea had, oddly enough, felt like a snub to the spooky moon dragon that had insisted she have this tome... and who was she to tell it "No?" For now, she nibbled her toast while reading, and tried not to drop too many crumbs into the pages.

The lessons contained were very telling, and it had put into perspective many of the things that her father had tried to teach her when she was little and not terribly interested in what she'd thought was a sport. She had fallen back on a lot of those teachings while she learned how to use her powers, since it had seemed to help get them under control. Finding out that her family was Awakened put many things into perspective, father's eccentric martial arts style for one.

The Silver Dragon's Breath is Power and Grace

For the longest time she thought it was just her father's silly reminder to breathe. Breath control did tie closely with her powers, and she didn't miss that lunar phases seemed to have an impact on how easy it was to use them. The book described it as "Tsukuyomi's Breath," in a very literal sense. Classically, red dragons breathe fire; blue dragons breathe lightning. Tsukuyomi's breath was literally power and speed, which shed a lot of light on why her power worked the way it did. However, if she was reading this correctly, Tsukuyomi was basically telling her that the "breath weapon" was just part of being who she was as a Champion, and that she could also do magic on top of that.

Nothing quite like being told "You're doing it wrong" by a spooky moon dragon through a magic book.

Yue crunched her toast as she flipped back and forth through the pages of the first chapter. It was a lot of information to parse, and reminded her of the studying she'd done to get familiar with the lore and cosmology of Final Odyssey. There were differences, and not just surface level ones like Mana being called Aether, but there were a lot of parallels to be drawn. Due, in no small part, to interference by the Olympians, if Archer was to be believed. She'd listened to his stories with a healthy grain of skepticism the night before, but she'd never known him to lie to her.

Well... in a manner of speaking.

The more she read, the more real Archer's stories started to sound, and she couldn't decide if that was spookier than the moon dragon or not.

She closed the book in her lap and gazed out into the room in thought, half eaten toast in one hand, coffee in the other. She focused on the currents end eddies of color flowing throughout the house and beyond. Her other sight. Yue found that she had a much harder time controlling it than she did with her [Dual Nature] perk in the game. Archer had explained to her last night that it was because her Aether... her Astral form was wounded, most likely due to her traumatic awakening.

In the game, the perk was as much of a hindrance as an asset if you weren't careful. For the most part, however, she could focus on specific elements and see only what she wanted to see. She wasn't so lucky with her natural vision. Topside there had only been the occasional "specter or hallucination." Particularly in the Stoneworks, however, her time in the UnderCity had bordered on sensory overload.

The next thing on her mind was how to apply this information in order to not just improve, but protect herself from an entirely new world of threats. Archer mentioned his charge was to protect her from all the stuff she couldn't see. Yue assumed that meant threats from the Exalt... the Awakened World. Having what amounted to the dedicated attention of a Goddess made her feel somewhat guilty. Surely there were more important things that required Archer's attention than her. A quick flip through her tome had revealed that there weren't any what she would consider defined "skills, spells, or features" to learn.

No two Awakened are alike in the way they craft their magic.

The book responded in shimmering silver characters to her palpable disappointment. For some reason it came across as smug to her, and she shut the book once again in a huff, munching the rest of her toast in thought.

"Thanks. Useless reptile," she muttered to herself as she cradled her coffee.

The rest of the house would be starting to move soon if they hadn't already, which meant that she could probably guilt Raudd or Archer into making some food that didn't contain carved up monsters.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

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[???? ??th, ???? - 01:51am, Terminal Asylum, Low Orbit, ?-?]

[A ZombiesAnHyenas / XianaEvermor Collaboration]

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I had been learning. It always took time. But I had eternity. I learned in time, always. I knew what they called me, what this thing, still called me. “A-0/A-Zero/Azirro”. All the same, my oldest-newest title. I learned from it. And it would learn, slower of course, from me. How… Tragic.

This small thing, a Tragedy in its making, was learning from me and thus, I learned from it. How to think in new ways.

It was eternal, this little thing; always coming back at a specific rotation of my barren hive. I watched it, sometimes. Observed it in absolute silence, no [INFORMATION] transferred. No [VOIDLIGHT] being spread across its tiny mind. It— She— learned quickly.

She had been on one of the last returns, when I saw the understanding flicker in the cycling [MANA] of her impassable divide. Her thoughts were loud, broadcast like a mourning bell in the silence of the world.

Two final, utter lessons, from me to her.

I screamed again, broadcasting my layered intentions at a lesser power. I could see the lattice of her [COUNTERSPELL] rising up, to shield her. It wouldn’t be enough. It would never be enough. But I couldn’t just erase her with the information, she had to lead me, after all, and if she became convinced that she could not hold me back…? I would never leave. I would starve in eternal boredom.

This was, and is, untenable.

So I pulled back. Let my [VOICE] crash against her defenses like a whispering tide. I let her see her efforts work for the first time. The only thing to kill her was the subject of my final lesson.

[HAZE] would catch us all, we things of [MANA] and [UNDERSTANDING]. I witnessed the ‘Archmages’ of this world fail in their slaying of me, simply due to the cost of [WEAVING] against me.

I would let this one, this play-pretend mage tainted by my glory think she had found a way to stop me. To finally escape from me. Another, terminal, lesson for her to learn later… My gaze will reach forever far. Nothing could hide from me. Nothing.

Her secrets will be mine.

So I waited for her to awaken, to rise, again.

Hard Reset. My eyes fluttered open. There was a new fire in my chest. Anger. Determination. Somehow I felt A-Zero shrink away. I could see my breath. The entrance to my room was still scored with frost. The life support systems hadn’t quite recovered, and the chill air pricked at my exposed skin. I sat up, gazing for too long at my palms.

There was a tickle at the edge of my mind. Were those my thoughts? They faded like a forgotten dream, slipping from my grasp faster the tighter I tried to hold them. It was a jumble I didn’t have the time to parse.

Was there even time enough to figure out how to wield this power safely? All of my powers were dangerous: no safeguards. Few limitations, but no safeguards. I’d have to learn it the way I learned everything else. Trial. Error. Death. My immortality allowed me to push the boundaries of my powers in ways nobody else could.

Start with what I know. It was more than just darkness. It created a void, like the void of space. It ate heat and energy at a rapid pace, fast enough to flash-freeze the room, myself included. It whittled bonds and barriers down to nothing. Could I direct that somehow? Wait. Math, Arrays, Formulas, Physics. Recalling the information sent a searing needle of pain through my temples and down my spine, knocking the breath from my lungs.

Ratios. All the pieces had to add up and still be one whole. In my desperation I’d thrown off the balance. This wasn’t a sword, it was a scalpel. A precision instrument that would explode violently if mishandled, but a scalpel nonetheless. Carefully, I summoned a sphere. A small one for experimentation, evenly mixed. The air in the room shuddered, and the temperature began to swiftly drop. [66:1:33]. The temperature stabilized, and the darkness solidified. It was cold, almost firm to the touch, and my hand sunk in with some effort. When I pulled it out, my fingers were cold and red but not frozen. My skin was dry and stretched thin.

I sensed a hesitation from A-Zero. Fear? Or Anticipation? Are you going to give me a moment to collect my thoughts, you monster?

A-Zero said “No.”

Hard Reset. This one’s different. My body is erased, but my consciousness remains aware in the void between lives. The solitude is oddly peaceful. A-Zero fucked up: now I had time. 24 hours to study, and I did. I reviewed the theory, parsed and organized the fragmented ideas that jumbled up into the corners of my traumatized brain so that I could make sense of them.

I realized that the arrays and formulas were more than just part of my intuitive understanding, and there were many new options available to me. It would take practice and application to figure it all out enough to weaponize it, but that’s okay. It’s how I learned the fastest.

I still had hours until I’d be back in my body. I used the time to map out my plan. My chambers were just outside the War Room: I always wanted to be close in case something was happening. Eighty-three feet from the bed to the War Room console. Have to talk to Monarch: she has information I need. Then I’ll have to survive at least fifteen seconds while the Conduit charges. With my plan in order all that’s left is to wait… I can be patient too, bitch.

3…

2…

01:51a. My eyes fluttered open. I came out swinging, leaping out of bed. My body wasn’t even fully materialized yet, and cold tendrils of void still clung to my skin as I strode with purpose. My first thought was to shield the whole station, but it’s too big and I didn’t have that kind of control yet. Something smaller. Simple shapes… a wall. No, a dome: I didn’t know if A-Zero’s attack was directional or if I could get caught by a reflection.

The void manifested around me. I put it up in layers, creating a negative space of absolute cold between a weakening barrier, and an insulating dome of solid darkness. I couldn’t see through it, but I knew the layout of the Terminal pretty well. The other two problems manifested as I started to move.

A-Zero was on top of me immediately. Her voice slammed into my barriers and I felt them splinter; the force of it knocked me to the ground. I was dazed,but not dead. Thankfully the Void ate sound, and the cacophonous scream of the creature was just a dull roar of white noise inside my bubble. The rest worked as intended: [Weakness] blunted the attack, [Cold] sapped its energy, and everything else was muted by the [Void]... I still couldn’t parse why [Cold] was different from “cold” in my mind and what had changed in the past weeks to make it that way.

Stop. Don’t get distracted by frivolous minutia. My brain was still jangled from the constant barrage of psyche rending attacks from A-Zero, and it was hard to focus.

The second problem was that the negative space zone of my bubble had frozen the Terminal’s floor plating. I somehow knew instinctively that my feet would freeze to it, and in the best case scenario it would only rip my skin clean off. I tried to re-shape the [Void] layer and slip it beneath the other layers, like a dustpan, or a Dolley. The whole structure buckled and threatened to collapse, and I stopped. The concentrated effort of maintaining the separate layers stung my insides in a way I’d never experienced. It was like fatiguing a muscle I didn’t know I had, and a strange haze of heat had begun to build up beneath my sternum. If I teleported, would the bubble come with me? Something to test in a safer environment.

Simple shapes. What about… stacked bowls? I adjusted the [Void] layer so that it was slightly larger than the others, and gently lifted them off the floor. This still buckled my concentration some, but it was easier than trying to fold one layer beneath the others. A-Zero’s shrieking rattled through the gap, tearing at the edges of my consciousness. It was still manageable.

After I reinforced the cracks, I pressed as quickly as I dared to the console. The hard part would be slipping it through the bubble without making the console useless.

I watched the human move. My spawn watched as well, changing position each time she was shunted to the [VOID] between existing in death, and life. Her ‘mind’ still operated in that in between, and was ironically strong… And weak… in its protection.

How curious! When untethered by [FLESH] and [SOUL], the [MIND] was an all powerful thing. If she would only think it, it would be so. I learned something new from her.

Perhaps this could be utilized for my departure… Later. I had eternity to think. To plan.

She had properly defended herself this time, when she slammed back into [LIFE]. I sent a probing scream, feigning my fear at her ability to ‘shut me out’. Hah. She was MY champion now. The only one in this world, now. My power would flow through her, and through whatever medium she chose to weave with.

The latticework changed as I silently observed. A bowl within a bowl. Rudimentary. Simple. Perfect. Something that, if she had only been born… Well… Time was elusive, even for me. That aspect hadn’t allowed me to consume it. Once its focus was gone? So was its concept. How frustrating. Oh well.

If she had learned and been born sooner, perhaps this wouldn’t be a losing battle on her end.

Ah. She was moving, again! Multitasking like only an [AWAKENED] would, when confronted with spells and a problem.

I would observe until the time was right… She was planning, and I do love her plans. They were… Illuminating.

Perhaps I made a mistake in subsuming the entirety of this plane. I could have learned! How frustrating.

The console wouldn’t survive. It’d be dust. Somehow I knew the intense weakening effect, followed by freezing, and even a gentle nudge from the semi-solid darkness layer would reduce the console to frozen dust. I hesitated for a moment, paying in stamina as my breath came heavier and heavier. Only one chance with the console. It’d take days for the station to print a new one and install it. Nose running. Taste of copper in my mouth. I wiped my nose on my arm, leaving a bloody streak on my skin. No. Today, I would find my limits, and break them if necessary. I didn’t have to worry that it would kill me.

I felt a shudder from A-Zero. Excitement? Or Fear?

The area of the bubble that was taking the most punishment was the area facing A-Zero. Ripples occasionally slapped the sides and rear, but I didn’t think catching one of those would be enough to liquefy my fragile gray matter. Hold off the worst of it… suffer through the rest.

The [Void] didn’t like hard edges or corners, I noticed. It seemed to slip naturally into waves and curves, and fight me to retain its fluidity. The lack of absolutes felt alien, and fighting the Void’s amorphous nature was too much stress for the new muscle I was forming. Cracks and splinters started forming faster than I could reinforce them, and the strength finally left my body. Suddenly, like someone had flipped a switch, my construct shattered, and my body was erased.

Scheiße.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

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[???? ??st, ???? - 01:51am, Terminal Asylum, Low Orbit, ?-?]

[A ZombiesAnHyenas / XianaEvermor Collaboration]

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My eyes fluttered open, squinting reflexively at the brightness of my clock. The lights were dimmed, per my sensitivity settings, but my eyes had never seen light. The dull ache stabbed deep into my skull.

01:51a. Hard Reset.

I had died again. As I had a dozen times since that accursed witch sent me to this Hell. As I would many more times it seemed, rebuffed by the demonic, alien, eldritch god-monster that had devoured my Sun, Moon, and Earth.

Entity Designation A-Zero. The progenitor. It had spawned many different A-series creatures as it devoured aspects of my world and made them its own, but A-Zero was the first.

We skipped A-One. Everyone agreed we’d be an embarrassment to the Multiverse if it sounded like steak sauce destroyed our world. Well… most everyone: Alchemist had found the notion particularly hilarious, mainly because Enchanter had been so vehemently opposed. Those two were always in opposition, rivals in some form in every dimension that I visited. It was practically a universal constant.

Normally I would fight, tooth and nail to escape each time I woke up. Fight to keep moving, because stopping was death. Worse than death. This time I stared vacantly at the ceiling in the pools of blood, liquefied organs, and other viscera that had begun to accumulate on the bed from my repeated deaths. I’d noticed something.

The intensity was lessening with each pulse. Or I was building up a tolerance… in-so-much as someone whose body regenerated to a state completely untouched by time, stimulus, or sensation after each death could even have a “tolerance.” Now that it wasn’t drowned out by the sheer magnitude of the scream, I discovered that there was information carried along with each wave… just a little bit. Snippets of a revelation I was on the cusp of understanding if I could be patient and get just a little more.

Was there always knowledge buried in these screams? Was A-Zero communicating with me? Or did it finally let something slip? Something I could use… a weapon? Was it knowledge from the monstrosity? Or the inherent understanding of a thing born from a trauma induced second trigger event?

It came as a ripple, this time. Leaping across miles and miles and miles of open, dead, air. A far off scream, wavering and warbling. The sky, usually filled with the pin-pricks of stars, shimmered as the ripple passed. Colors exploded across the dappled skein of otherwise nearly perfect black.

The ‘sun’ shifted. Shivering in place before abruptly vanishing. The lines and lines of ‘script’ that stretched out from its pitch-black disk turned to dust, and began to fall in a terrible parody of snow.

Droplets of prismatic oil fell, from the ripple, landing on the powdered surface of a once living planet. Each droplet slowly rose, becoming a towering pillar of marble-white, each with cracks of rainbow light spreading across its entirety.

Eyes opened on each pillar, scattered across the surface.

The ripple passed under the uncrossable barrier, blindingly bright as it went. Silence roared in the space traveled by the waves. Nothing else changed.

Then… yet another scream came; bursting forth from a horizon that was simultaneously much too far, and far too close. The pillars on the surface screamed as well, lending a cacophonous chorus to the already deafening shriek.

Information was exchanged, as a singular, massive, golden-green-grey-pink eye burned itself into any mind still living within the dimension.

Perhaps she was right, this minuscule light hanging above a bleak, blank, tapestry. Maybe It was getting weaker. Maybe It had always been screaming information. It didn’t matter, she was learning, this tiny light, and so was It. It had already had countless thoughts of the multitudes of avenues by which she would utilize her newfound gifts. Gifts that It had forced upon her, ripping open invisible eyes sealed shut. And each thought was thrown across the heavens, endlessly screamed for the briefest moment.

The shriek rolled through the uncrossable barrier, slamming through stone and concrete and steel and—

It waited for her light to go out again. It would wait for however long It had to. She was learning, and It was a patient teacher. The information was always given as ‘an accident’.

It rarely makes mistakes. But she didn’t need to know that.

I couldn’t help but pay attention, even as blinding white erupted across every nerve as it felt its first pain and my consciousness was abrasively shredded back into the void.

Void.

[VOID].

Darkness. The bleak nothing. That brief and gentle respite from the pain, trauma, and mounting frustration that this wasn’t an error I could learn from. Or was it? A new concept stuck in my mind, an aspect that blanketed the in-between, just out of reach. Far too long, and not nearly long enough.

My eyes fluttered open, squinting reflexively at the brightness of my clock. The lights were dimmed, per my sensitivity settings, but my eyes had never seen light. The dull ache stabbed deep into my skull.

01:51a. Hard Reset.

My bed was becoming soggy, and the squelch of fluids I could only guess pressing my ruined Tinker-Silk sheets cloyingly against my skin made me shiver. My insides grated against my skin like coarse sandpaper against a sheet of Medium Density Fiber.

I grasped reflexively at that concept at the edge of my mind; tried to pull it over myself like a security blanket. For a fraction of a moment something… nothing flickered into existence, blotting out the cold, unforgiving interior of the station that was supposed to be our sanctuary. It wasn’t enough. It was incomplete, and shattered against the shriek of information that was getting drilled into my psyche.

[COLD] The absence of energy, the inverse of Heat. The biting, piercing, persistent frigidity that saps life from all things. [WEAKNESS] Fragility, the inverse of Strength. The breakdown of bonds, the wearing of time, the thinnest gossamer of glass crumbling at the touch.

Three parts of a whole, a [Voidlight]. These concepts stuck bluntly, and I could sense there was more, more information, more nuance. More… more, before I was scrubbed out of consciousness once again.

01:51a. Hard Reset.

The stress was taking its toll. I felt exhausted, though my body should be young, vibrant, and full of energy. I could only hang on to the essentials, the nuances were lost. I sensed Monarch’s cold, clinical gaze observing me, awaiting my input. More information.

How to “Cast.” How to “Weave” lattices of energy. Hard Reset.

Tapestries of arrays, formulas, chemicals? Math. Was this science? Physics? Faster. Hard Reset.

Transmuting matter, warping the latticework of physics, bending the laws, breaking them. Breaking the bonds that held the curtains between worlds and dimensions together. Hard Reset.

The universe was suddenly such a tiny thing against the vastness of my understanding, my senses expanded. Energy was everywhere, everything, in everything, between everything. Building blocks, waiting to be stacked. Rivulets of [Black] shuddered against my awareness, bathed in halos of [Blue] and fading to a sickly [Green].

I leapt out of bed, the ruined sheets slashed painfully at my skin. I reached, grasping recklessly to throw anything in the way of the next wave.

"SHUT UP!" I shrieked. The void responded, splashing up in a haphazard lattice between me and A-Zero. I felt it’s stream of consciousness splash against it… The station’s tenuous warmth was ripped out of the room, and my breath hitched. Frost shredded against my lungs, my skin burned cold.

"Temperature anomaly," Monarch parroted my voice back at me. A crack lanced through me from hip to shoulder, the last thing I felt.

A sword that cuts both ways.