Sebastian Pop

Bylaws of Babel

The next chapter of Understanding will be delayed by a little bit. I've had construction work, extended guests, cross-mountain hiking for the sake of preventing the mayor's office from stealing our land, and day-long power outages all in the last week. I still intend to have it out by week's end, and I don't foresee any delays for the other two stories. Still, I thought a heads up was warranted.

In the meantime, here's something I've got lying around in my hard drive. Another story I'll probably not follow up on, albeit one I'm more enthused with than the Minato in Worm plot bunny. Hope it helps tidy you over.

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Bylaws of Babel

Prologue: 32,200 Years of Unintended Consequences,

“-. 792.M30 .-“

Souls were not created, they spontaneously came into being when sufficient subtle matter condensed into a spiritual body, along with a host of other conditions.

It was possible to influence their base nature, though. Or, at least, to influence what soul would come to be. This was done by influencing the spiritual body itself ahead of time.

The Emperor did so for the Primarchs, by infusing still-forming Warp archetypes with his own notions of the same, those amnesiac amalgams of his own achievements and mindsets as he best remembered himself from different times in his past.

The Ruinous Powers also did so for the Primarchs, by precognitively looping the nascent archetypes with their possible metastases from the far future, thereby corrupting the new life forms with a smidgen of predetermination from the start.

It wasn’t easy, that was how the Four preyed on other gods and made their greatest daemons, all things that the Emperor had understanding enough to account for.

But it remained nevertheless possible, if just by subtly filling in blanks and ‘fixing’ the fallacies and self-contradictions that the Emperor left in. Unknowingly.

Whatever his reasons, Neoth had never allowed himself true perfect memory. Or, at least, he didn’t have it now. While this did spare him the toil of having to consciously process and move past events – and change himself, thankfully, though it still took him much too long compared to the average man – it also meant that his ability to infer and remember past lessons and patterns was not perfect either.  

Patterns like ‘the house always wins’ when making wagers with the gods of evil.

Lessons like ‘think twice before you topple Babel.’

That last one was especially infuriating because Neoth himself destroyed his tower back then – and killed him – thereby dooming mankind to its current course.

Because of the Eldar, naturally. When Bloody Khaine led the Eldar gods against the young, still incomplete pantheon of Terra, he’d had to put his own ascension on hold and hastily modify the Tower to provide them additional empowerment instead. That gave the regular Eldar time to come to earth and do their subterfuge there too.

A humanity with full mastery of the Tongue of Creation was never going to be tolerated by the knife-ears. It was why he’d used the language to ward the construction against everything non-human, successfully. And why the long-ears resorted to a local patsy to do the dirty work for them, also successfully.

Pretending they were the local ancestor spirits went a long way for the aliens, back then.

Oh, how it burned Neoth to find out what he had done, after the fact. Not quickly, not soon, not even in the same millennium. But Neoth did learn, and he, the architect, was actually there to see it happen. Not in the same body, but there all the same, though he never actually revealed it. The vindication had tasted like ash, so many lifetimes after the disaster.

For all that the prehistoric shamans had mostly joined in on the mass suicide to create a super-psyker, not all of them did. Some tried and failed to find alternatives. Some became undead and were soon vanquished. Some managed to create – and then become – perpetuals.

As for him, he found his own solution in the talent that allowed him to mathematically reverse-engineer the Primordial Tongue to begin with. He managed to learn his own True Name and seal it. It gave him power, it gave him freedom, it let him preserve his mind and his memory even after his body and spirit were destroyed. Most important of all, it made his soul imperceptible to all other beings if he so desired, and thus allowed him to reincarnate after death once again.

He'd done so many times since. Like Neoth he’d been a commoner, craftsman, warrior, soldier, sage, a leader, and many other things. Unlike Neoth, he’d even been elected to lead the Human Federation at one point. Got to order him around even, the latter was just an admiral at the time! It was hilarious, doubly so since Neoth never realized who he really was. He indulged in many forms of small and petty vengeance then, everything he could do to inflict some manner of comeuppance, in a way that didn’t also come with mass slaughter of innocents. Like the rest of humanity, both Neoth and himself were going through their best phase at the time.

It was for good reason that the Federation only manifested when Neoth finally stopped trying to control everything. And reached its zenith when he was finally content with not controlling anything at all, beyond his own affairs.

There was nothing petty or good about what was taking place now.

The Primarch Gestation Chamber was awash in red alerts and loud sirens. The arcane glyphs of protection enscribed by Neoth on the Primarchs' gestation capsules were glowing intense, angry golden hues that nevertheless failed to hold back the tides of the Warp. The Emperor had crafted the most powerful Gellar Field ever made around the gene-vault, but even that was proving to not be enough. There was a Warp rift in the middle of the chamber, growing rapidly like molten cracks in a ball of glass.

If only they’d known before, that the quaint war game from far back in the second millennium had been a prophecy! Then he wouldn’t have had to get involved in this mess. Unfortunately, he’d had no alternative, not if he wanted to avert the last and worst debasement of mankind.

When he watched Neoth imbue the spirit of the Eleventh Primarch with all his understanding of responsibility and hindsight and regret, he finally knew how to make good on an entire unlife of planning.

For better or worse, the conditions that enabled a soul’s incarnation also enabled reincarnation. In this case, his. As the Eleventh Primarch.

The gestation pods were pulled into the Warp just as the Emperor finally blasted in.

Eleven sensed his brothers react with everything from defiance to distress, but indulged in no illusions that he’d be able to affect their fate. Not here, not now, not like this.

For better or worse, he could only affect his own in the hopes of getting to them later.

They weren’t scattered immediately. The Four roared, retched, simpered and argued even as Tzeentch hurried to reinforce the prep-work they’d all done, back when the Neoth made his wager with them. Khorne, Slaanesh and Nurgle tried to take and keep them, which made sense for creatures like them.

The speculations of many during the second millennium were being proven right. It didn’t make sense for the Four to not just keep the Primarchs outright.

But the runes on the pods glowed mightily, more and more the longer they were in the Warp. Such was Neoth’s power and skill that even the four would lose grasp eventually. The runes on the pods worked to loosen their grasp and push away their power with Anathema shine. The twenty would translate back to realspace well before they broke the pods open.

If they tried to hold onto all of them, that is.

They didn’t try.

They just settled each for one. Khorne took the Second, Nurgle Fourteen, Slaanesh took him, lustful of twisting the Anathema’s honest grief and will to better himself into ultimate perversions, caressing and spewing all over his pod until the runes corroded and the metal and glass was coming apart around him. His was the first pod to break, he was the first to become exposed and he was just about to speak-

Tzeentch took Fifteen, ‘failed’ to knot something in his spirit that was so large the pod couldn’t contain it, then ‘lost grip’ such that Magnus went on his way with a dash and bump that ‘accidentally’ knocked all of the other three on the way out.

Khorne managed to hold onto his, the others didn’t, all three roared, squelched, shrieked in outrage. Their will and limbs and warp madness got in each other’s way as they tried to reclaim the others, they cursed Tzeentch for his inevitable betrayal and just barely failed to stop him from stealing Slannesh’s toy as well-

“Burn.” Eleven said.

Grasping talons flinched as Tzeentch suffered the fate decreed through the harmonic tones of Eununcia.

“No.” Eleven spoke again, even though every sound strained his spirit with the effort to make himself heard in full. For Eununcia to work, it needed to resound loud and clear, and in the Warp this was harder. Inconsistent. “Fail, Heal, Wallow, Empathize.”

Tzeentch clumsily lost grip on him with a shriek, Nurgle heaved from feeling hale and whole, Slaanesh experienced a moment when it felt nothing, and Khorne gasped in reflected sorrow, the feeling so alien that he lost his grip on the last pod.

Maybe he could change this one fate.

The Four lost sight of Eleven when he extended his soul to envelop his whole being, hiding under the aegis of his sealed Name, unseen to all. For a moment and eternity, they looked for him. For a moment and eternity they warred over their failure.

They devolved into a mad scramble for the last pod still left, each trying to salvage this last thing. The Second.

Countless limbs and warp spasms clashed and combined in the wake of the last pod. They thrashed all over each other, so mighty and so hateful that they failed to catch it. The worn, straining pod of the Second Primarch flew and bounced and wrenched to and fro, always just barely saved from capture by the others getting in each other’s way, through might or spell and treachery, a slip of the claw along a pus-slick limb.

Eleven flew after them, always keeping the Second in his sight. He was going to deny the Annihilator its consolation even if it killed him again. Also, he didn’t have any preferences for where else to go. This was the only path amidst the cloying madness that still resembled a direction.

The Second’s trajectory was a warping, drunken zig-zag along the boundary of the Four domains. Nurgle’s rot ate into the Excess of Riches every time the Second seemed likely to crash into the Pleasure Prince’s domain. The Anathema’s rune script kept turning the pod away from Tzeenthch’s domain, such that it skimmed past even when the Changer had advantage. Just long enough for Slannesh’s vindictive bliss to distract the buzzard.

When a massive two-handed sword struck in a bid to spitefully deny everyone their prize, the Second’s pod blasted downward like a twin-tailed comet. Blood fell and burned away in the volcanoes along the boundary of Khorne’s Rage, leaving naught behind for any to besmirch.

Eleven barely managed to grab on before Khorne’s strike.

“Endure,” he rasped, giving almost half of the spirit he’d embodied into, whose destiny he’d stolen for himself. “Abide. Live.”

He couldn’t hold on.

The Second’s pod tore a rippling gap through the Boundary of Realms on the way down, like waves inside a whirlpool.

Eleven flew after it as fast as he could, struggling to survive the Chaos around him, the wrath following down. Each moment was a chunk of flesh lost. His spell, he could still feel it struggling to see Second through, still needed fuel. Fuel he still had, that he could give because distance in the Warp barely mattered, but while he did that he glowed like star’s fire, couldn’t hide-

A beam of sorcerous energy tore through him. Even though Khorne’s sword got in the way, he didn’t survive it.

But his soul was untouchable, even if his body and spirit definitely weren’t. Delving the immaterium as an unbound entity, in this he’d had millennia of practice.

But still the spell on his sibling needed power, so now he was visible to the ruin around him even as a soul, despite his sealed True Name.

There were roars and calls and screams and entreaties. Distant, now, but no longer just four. He flew along lines tracing symbols of warding and fiery purification, he was inviolable as long as his seal endured but he could still be caught and trapped. He fled onwards down until the Four Realms grew thin and distant around him. Glancing back up, he saw a horde of demons of all kinds, clawing down, digging, swimming in search of his remains, others coming right for him, more still tearing down after his brother.

I’m in the Deep Warp, the realization came to him. Or close? I can see it, something like – a surface?

The Deep Warp. Ancient Lore spoke of it in hushes whispers, like something even the gods didn’t dare brave.

Suddenly, he felt the Second translate back into – something like the materium?

The draw on what was left of his spirit was gone. His brother’s fate was no longer in his hands.

He hid once more.

The tide of monsters swept past and around him, oblivious to his presence again.

He still followed as best he could, but now it was an increasingly confusing mess, the Warp itself spasming and lurching to remake itself in the wake of the rip torn by natural law. He soon lost the trail completely, and was left to wander and skulk about legions of monsters like a fish learning to swim for the second time. He was unsure if he should still follow or try to find a way back up and out. Either way, it would take a long time.

But then the four factions of demons, for some reason, began to cooperate again. Not very well, others might not even notice the change, but he did.

He followed down further, he didn’t know how long, perhaps no time at all depending on how time contracted or dilated at that depth. His own spirit certainly got smaller and denser as he went deeper, the pressure of the Warp rising upon him until he couldn’t even reach out with it beyond his soul’s own boundary. He was seriously considering the possibility of an immaterium equivalent of compression sickness. And decompression, if he decided to go back up.

Then he saw it.

The Deep Warp. It was still below him, like… an ocean and cloud and stellar coronal mass ejection winds all at once. Altogether concealing… a…

There was a world floating in the Deep Warp.

No, there was an entire star system.

He stopped and stared. For a time, he was simply bedazzled by the sight, and the strange rings and mechanisms around it. It was an orrery, except every piece of the model was real and manifest, a sun surrounded by ten planets, all within a shell made of twelve rings spinning around each other along numeric axioms. Between them, like the layers of an onion, fields of force and energy sustained countless infinity engines glowing like stars on the underside of the shell. They were the stars. They powered the gimbal-like encasement in turn, keeping the ‘water’ out, even as it was now breached by the invaders. Or was it?

Floating down, he saw legions of demons. Legions had made it here before him, or were they already here? There were many monsters, and they had to have been at work for a long time. Enough that even the Ruinous Powers themselves were here, in some manner. He could see a reflection of the four Realms of Chaos he’d just escaped, and he sensed that the sympathetic principle was so strong about them that there could be no difference, if necessary.

The Four were still up there, but their realms were also here. Enough that if you were here, you were also up there, with them, if they wanted.

The combined replica of the four hells floated on the surface like an island on a sea, but also reached down, deeper. Like a perversion of a crab-filled garbage patch, its rank imitation of algae tangled into the world below like grasping roots made of blood, pus and bile.

He flew around, not willing to tempt fate. He reached the surface.

He dove in.

He didn’t die.

He was fascinated. The Deep Warp, that mysterious place that even the Primordial Annihilator feared to delve… perhaps there were enormous beasts and monsters like in the oceans of Earth? Or tides of powers and forces that just didn’t facilitate survival? That wasn’t what was here, though. Instead, it was… a dyson sphere of some sort? Or perhaps a dyson ship. Warded against the warp too, something like a Gellar field – no.

A piece of the materium itself was here, protected and maintained by what was obviously some sort of empyreal-cosmic engineering. It looked like a proper solar system from outside, the star, planets, asteroids, even enough space void around the heliosphere to fit a roaming comet with space left over. If it were all artificial or make-believe, it wouldn’t need to be so large, the old ones could just have taken the planet and made it the center of tis own geocentric system. It certainly would have reduced the footprint of the external mechanisms.

Someone had moved an entire stellar system into the Deep Warp. Probably the Old Ones, whatever they were. For some reason.

Eleven tried to slip inside, but couldn’t. He managed to swim to the outmost layer of the gimbal-like mechanism, for lack of a better term, but… The Orrery-like star sphere kept him out. There were fields of force and pressure and conceptual denial of him and all others encroaching now. His spirit… it was tainted by Chaos. Enough that… whatever this was denied him passage.

Not as strongly everywhere, though, and not just by quirk of design. As he flew around it and set his spirit against it, he traced weakness to a point where he could tell the structure had been breached. Not a lot, not for long, but straight through. Not by warp phenomena, but by natural law at sufficient velocity.

His brother. The Second Primarch had smashed right through the shell here. The damage had repaired itself, but there was a lingering feeling of weakness, or remembered weakness that took longer to unmake than it should. Much emotional charge too, the most unpleasant sort. Tampering.

Something of Chaos had followed the Second in.

It was some time ago, though, long enough that the world sphere had time to float and roll over until the hole was no longer accessible to the Ruinous Powers. For a time.

Either way, Eleven couldn’t get in. Not through here, even if he were willing to add to the damage. Not without natural law of his own. His body.

He could try Eununcia, assuming sound wasn’t hopelessly muffled by the pressure so far under, here. But unless he spent eons trying to puzzle out all the mechanics and come up with a non-damaging incantation, he’d just weaken it more.

Perhaps there were other access places, deeper, but he’d already inspected what he could. He’d swam as deep as he could without feeling like… something unpleasant might happen despite his special case. There was something or somethings here that completely exceeded even his frame of reference. It was like those dreams of suffering or ecstasy that you always wake up from before the going gets good, if you haven’t experienced the acts or sensations in real life first. Either way, he couldn’t swim deep enough to see the bottom of the world, never mind whatever infinity the Deep Warp spanned.

He could cast off what he had left and delve on as a naked soul…

But he knew the feeling of the power that kept him out. He remembered it from long ago, when Earth still had its gods. This world was populated. In was populated by enough sophonts to sustain faith-based deities. Gods of sufficient strength, or perhaps the defenses were just so good, that the Primordial Annihilator couldn’t just roll it over. Probably both. It was everything his father and others before him had wanted to accomplish. Everything he himself failed to see completed.

He decided to learn as much as he could first.

Eleven made his way back up.

He roamed the local Chaos Realms until he found mustering forces. Predominantly Khornate, which meant combat.

Going down.

He followed. Down through a scaffold made of parasitic tendrils around slimy gangrenous brass, just enough for what would be considered a ‘mere’ trickle of warp spawn, by the Imperium of ten millennia from now. Just enough of the Deep Warp had been displaced to form a tunnel through the ocean, all the way to the pole of the outer shell currently facing their filthy isle of ruin. There was a gate there, of some sort, now tainted. Corrupted by Chaos Undivided through fel spume and letters.

The star sphere was self-contained but adrift, it turned this way and that as the Deep Warp’s ocean-like currents moved it. It wouldn’t be noticeable from inside, but from outside it meant that Chaos had managed to get a foothold at the pole, where before had been a stargate. Since the world spun and rolled as it drifted, it was possible, even likely, that the other pole occasionally faced the uppermost surface of the Deep Warp as well, which meant the same probably happened there too. Would happen again when the firmament rolled again.

Stargate. Waygate. Or Gates.

Doorways. Access portals. The only components of the world system that weren’t entirely crafted for defense and protection, and thus still possible to suborn mystically.

And, if his incipient suspicions about this were true, both gates would be paired to an identical one on the worlds inside, deeper in.

He made his way to the gate.

He found combat.

The Legions of Hell were engaged in never ending war.

The Legions of Hell were stalemated. By a single warrior.

A dwarf.

Eleven stared in shock.

… They both were prophecies!

Astonishing! Not just Warhammer 40,000 but Warhammer Fantasy as well, both games had been prophetic! Incredible!

It took some time to get over his amazement.

It took much longer to come up with a course of action. Close to a year, actually, by his own reckoning. A year when he only occasionally dropped by to watch the big dwarf fight, to relax. The bulk of Eleven’s time was spent examining the fel works of the daemons with all his mathematic acumen, doing the same to the Chaos Realms themselves, then to the waygate, and even studying what else he could of the masterwork that was the submerged world sphere, from outside.

Ultimately, what decided his course was the false nature of Chaos and its works. They couldn’t create, only corrupt.

Khorne was the greatest warrior only because he aped the talent and might of real warriors he humiliated through advantages he didn’t work for, and so he himself felt humiliated for never having any claim to valor of his own. He was too big for fair fights even as he was never more than equal to the best. Slaanesh was eternally unsatisfied because all pleasures were already had by someone else, and in such amounts that they were no longer fresh. Nurgle worked to make all life miserable because it was the only way to make himself miserable, he was born out of a fear and hatred of death, and so he constantly feared and hated himself. His ‘warm’ attitude towards the mortals he plagued was him being an abusive parent, self-deluding himself into thinking he’s doing it all ‘for your own good. And Tzeentch…

Tzeentch wouldn’t have anything to undermine or ruin, if the good and proper job hadn’t already been successfully accomplished, somehow somewhere. His claim on ‘hope’ was his delusion that he’d succeed at twisting precognition into retrocognition. He was literally trying to manifest a desired outcome by looking into the cosmos’ collective experience, and then trying to convince the same cosmos that the complete fantasy you just thought up was actually reality. Because some of the events, facts and figures in it came from reality.

Compared to the Ruinous Powers, a single human soul might not seem like much.

But Eleven had had over thirty thousand years to collect data, run experiments, process outcomes, develop theories, and calculate future possibilities. Including the ultimate nature of the Primordial Annihilator.

In the end, it was just a metastasized tumor grown from the mangled emanations of sophonts. Those, he’d found, always emerged and behaved in ways that were perfectly comprehensible to humanity, given sufficient time and open mind.

Finally, unlike Neoth, he did make sure to have a properly perfect memory. Which was why he remembered perfectly well why he had planned to become a god, back then.

And how.

“I Am I That I AM.”

By its very nature, Eununcia had to sound to work. Which meant that it could be traced back to the source, when using it for any sort of outward effect. No matter how invisible he was. To change only himself was a different matter, but that was only the second, longer-term stage of his new plan. Hopefully eternal. Later.

“My mind is a burgeoning record, my spirit is faculty self-transcending, my form is a vessel ever-meliorating by dictum of my Soul.”

The Warp heard him. The Chaos Gods heard him. The daemons swarmed the place from whence his words resounded, followed his trail as he flew along golden ratio lines. It burned them whenever they drew near, letting him stay just a bit ahead as he plunged through the Chaos Realms straight for the gate.

“I Am I That I AM. My spirit spans experience, my form masters all rigor, my mind charts all potentials by cognizance of my Soul.”

He’d already tried this under the Deep Warp’s surface, but he just couldn’t yell the words loud enough. Now, though, again in the Deep Warp but with the power of a nascent god bolstering him, he could make it work just this once.

“I Am I That I AM. My Past Is Inviolate, My Future Is Mine, My Present Is My Soul Become the Funnel into the Nous of All!”

The surface of the Deep Warp frothed with the resounding might of a divine birth.

It wasn’t real, he lacked all the power and claim, but the Warp was the realm where dreams were real. For a brief time, even his dream could be real here, despite everything else.

He didn’t see it through. The failed spell of a delusional cosmic devil-thing was not the best foundation for godhood. Even if it were, this was the worst moment and place to do it. Having his true name sealed wouldn’t work if his true name changed, he’d have to redo the procedure and that would take time and safety he didn’t have. The Chaos Gods made sport of gobbling up new deities. And at the end of the day, a single speaker of Eununcia was never going to be enough to see them gone.

He shot through the daemon throng like a rocket, annihilated everything in his path, and lost so much momentum by the end of his flight that he didn’t obliterate the dwarf on the way in.

“OGH!”

The Tongue of Creation worked best in the materium anyway.

At the North Pole on the world of Mallus, Grimnir the Fearless shot out of the broken waygate skipping like a stone. A bloody chunk of rock that bounced twenty times, smashed through eight glaciers, and came to a stop amidst a flock of scared and confused penguins. He spent the next five minutes trying to dig himself out of ice and warpstone, failing to curse Chaos to the twentieth generation because he was too busy wheezing from the hardest gut smack in his life.

That was good. It meant he wasn’t a distraction from the misused stargate, the last dregs of the Eleventh’s spirit still left, and the final spasm of power from his aborted ascension on the other side. Which, in that last moment, was still him.

“All that is in my sight,” he rasped. “Be No More.”

The roof of the world was erased from existence. At the same time, the paired waygate on the outside of the cosmic shell was similarly destroyed as his dream of divinity self-immolated.

Both broken stargates and the chaos rift they sustained were instantly annihilated in twin implosions of cataclysmic force.

Left behind was a soul adrift, new arctic weather patterns, and a wheezing god staring at the sudden removal of his eternal doom with wide-eyed, dumbstruck eyes.

Plan ‘change destiny’ failed successfully.

Eleven felt the sights of many turn to where they were. They saw the absent warp rift, the absent warp gate, the all-new crater in the ground that was so deep it seemed to have no bottom in the polar twilight. They saw him, there was still a scrap of spirit wisking away, he hadn’t withdrawn into himself yet, he’d neglected to do so with everything else happening, he had to-

“Who – what – what is this?”

He almost hid and fled by reflex.

But…

If he leveraged things right, this time and place could give him some very mighty allies later.

“That – you – how?”

Grimnir huffed and puffed and stumbled with breathless steps… he looked so awestruck… sounded so grateful.

Eleven used what scrap of will he still had to weave a see-through ghost out of lingering warp matter and faced the old immortal.

“A manling?!”

Grimnir was a muscular dwarf with his body covered with tattoos and ritual scars. If he once wore anything but the spiked orange crest of a Slayer and his ragged pants, there was no sign. His axe, too, looked like it was one swing away from a snapped shaft, even as it cut a deep grove in the ice as he dragged it behind him. “You – what – what did you do? How?” The large dwarf was much taller than the biggest man. It made the tentative hope on is face all the more stark. “… I thought I’d be fighting that fight forever.”

A wry smile was all Eleven dared give in answer. He barely had any strength left, he’d manage a handful of words at most, he couldn’t waste them.

Grimnir bit his hand to calm down. Fresh blood steamed when the drops hit the snow.

Finally, the dwarf god let go, took a deep breath and went to one knee with hand held out. “I am Grimnir, the Slayer, Grungni’s brother, Living Ancestor of all Dawi everywhere. And I vow, here and now, that I will find a way to prove to you, that we dwarves hold onto debts of honor as tightly as our grudges.”

Eleven held out a spectral hand in return, laid it on top of Grimnir’s even though neither could feel it. Perhaps some imprint of his essence might be remembered later? If not by Grimnir, then by whoever else he meets. “You might well need to choose between the two, soon enough.”

“Wait-!“

He would’ve waited, spoken for days if that’s what it took, there was little he wanted to say but much he wanted to know. But that was all he had in him, and he wasn’t one to deal with others purely on their terms. As his mirage dispersed, he discarded the last of his spiritual body and hid himself from all eyes, finally, including those powers who might otherwise be able to force souls to their bidding. He could be imperceptible to all as a naked soul, but that wouldn’t help him much if he was trapped ably enough. He flew away.

He couldn’t dawdle. He could feel the changes wrought upon himself, the many works he could now grasp, the unlimited potential for self-actualization now inborn. With effort and time, he should be able to become anything, do anything, achieve literally anything. Enough, maybe, to turn even the galaxy’s future on a hinge.

But he could do none of that if he remained a figment incapable of setting the terms for a measly conversation.

Or grab tools.

Finally, and most importantly, the Second Primarch was somewhere on this world. Somewhere on this planet, somewhere within this time capsule of men, elves, dwarves, giants, orks, dragons and rats, his little brother waited to be rescued.

Probably in the Great Vortex, if certain old lore had any grain of truth. The Lore of Heaven. Sigmar.

Still, for all that an unbound soul couldn’t do much alone, he could roam and wander at his leisure. Quite swiftly too. It took no time at all to find the nearest piece of civilization. It was a tribe of Norscans whose soothsayer had just become stark raving mad.

He passed them over. Not because they venerated Chaos, the people of old Babylon and Akkad did it too by the time of his rule, that was why he built his tower to begin with. Like his father Naram-Sin before him, the point was to become a human god, one of however many it took to claim all possible spheres of influence in the star system, before the Ruinous Powers finally woke up and usurped them all. It would have given mankind its own higher powers to serve that weren’t crazy and abusive abominations from beyond the stars. In so doing, there would have been enough of them to muster forces and build defenses, maybe completely insulate the Sol system against external predation. That was where he and Neoth would forever be at odds.

That was clearly what the Old Ones had done here. Or tried.

They certainly managed more than he did.

Unfortunately, by Eldar trickery Neoth was driven to ruin that plan, and then his arrogant henchman’s misuse of Eununcia against Eununcia inflicted such a wound on the oversoul of humanity that mankind irreversibly fractured. The fragmentation of language wasn’t the cause of mankind’s eternal division, merely its quickest and most obvious consequence.

Eleven passed the second tribe over too, and the tribe after that one, and several more until he found what he wanted.

A woman.

A woman in labour.

A woman whose child was already dead inside her, meaning he didn’t need to deprive another soul of its rightful life.

He waited until the stillbirth was done before entering the babe. Thankfully, the spirit lasted a fair while after the soul departed on unnatural death, so he had just enough to work with. He settled in, rewired and quantized his brain, and even managed to poke and squeeze life back into his heart and lungs in time for the spank.

He couldn’t control the reflex to cry. It was embarrassing, but also the proof he needed that in this, at least, everything had gone right.

He was Libet-ili En-Marad, King of Babylon and Emperor of Akkad, the Hunter, the Architect who erected the House of the Eye of the Lands, the Last of the Sorcerer-Kings of Ancient Terra.

On old Earth, he’d been maligned and slandered for centuries by the petty losers that he had for enemies, until it became custom to label any simpleton a ‘Nimrod.’

On Mallus, Nimrod was reborn with unlimited potential and a direct tap into the akashic records of all macrocosms, on the very night when the voices of the chaos gods went dim.

It was, all things considered, quite adequately messianic.

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Mechanics

This is probably the most trouble anyone has ever gone through, to justify a Celestial Forge/Grimoire story.

This isn’t the usual sort, though, and not just because of the way it starts. Or when. I envision Nimrod as having access to both the Grimoire and Forge, but he controls when the rolls happen – i.e., the potential (CP) builds up normally, but he chooses in-universe when to roll. Roll 1/2 to determine if it’s Grimoire or Forge, then roll normally for list, then for the perk in the list.

However, there is one major difference: he doesn’t get any freebies – i.e. he gets only the knowledge of how to build the thing, or how to induce the change to his mind/body/spirit/whatever that a perk would imply. A ‘you can suddenly shapeshift’ perk would give him detailed comprehension of the mechanics, and how to acquire the ability, but he’d have to do the legwork himself, and supply the necessary magic or materials through his own work.

Conversely, however, a perk that normally gives a magic sword doesn’t actually grant the sword, but it teaches him everything he needs to make it, from the mining process to the forging, and the magical techniques needed for the enchantments. All knowledge, ability and skill will require practice, but it’s complete. By extension, getting all the relevant knowledge from the perks means he acquires cross-field expertise very quickly. I.e. a sword perk will teach him blacksmithing, while getting a perk for an orbital gun would teach him how to build it, and all the infrastructure, industry, computer technology, material science, rocket science and everything else necessary to build and put it up there in the first place.

Similarly, a perk that gives him a spell, energy regeneration, or protection from scrying wouldn’t actually apply the effects. But he’d learn everything needed to do it and understand all the benefits and limits, as well as the material/mystical mechanics involved.

Some perks will flat out not work at all, and will be rerolled automatically. There will be no extradimensional warehouse that ‘just works’ nor will he be able to conjure up an entire mine complex with its own population and eternally regenerating resources just because the perk says so.

Obviously, the perk prices get shot to hell with this approach, but such is life.

That said, being able to choose when to roll does mean he could bank points for several years and then roll whatever he wants through endless retries when he sits down one day. Since that’s a bit too much cheese even for me, I’d say a 50/100 CP cost to reroll would be a good way to balance that out.

And maybe some in-universe loss of time to assimilate the knowledge, and especially to achieve the intended effects. With more time needed the better the perk is. One day per 100 CP would be fine for weak perks, but maybe too little for big ones. Maybe a fancier addition? Could be a day for 100 CP, 1+ 2 = 3 days for 200 CP perks, 1+2+3 = 6 days for 300 CP, and a 1400 CP perk would be 105 in-universe days. A ridiculous amount of time, but one totally justified by how bullshit the top-tier perks are, in my opinion. Maybe he can choose between one super-long trance, or spreading it out over his normal sleeping hours, making it double the time frame if he just does it while he sleeps at night like normal?

Maybe during this time he wouldn’t be getting any additional CP, because he’d be using the inflow to maintain the plug into the perk he’s currently assimilating.

Anyway, here Nimrod gets to ‘cheat’ the early game a bit, but not as much as it could have been. Perfect memory means he recalls all the stuff he ever worked on, including a fair chunk of the stuff that would be in a Federation STC database, for example. He didn’t waste his time during that era, and he even worked on some stuff himself. Led colony missions, even. But he won’t have the means to actually do anything with that knowledge any time soon, especially in a world like this, even with his soul now plugged into akasha. Tools to make better tools to make better tools will take a fair bit of time, even if he conjures some wholesale. In other words, by the time the story reaches that point, odds are he’ll have gotten a bunch of perks of comparable applicability anyway.

He does, also, retain full knowledge of Eununcia. For reasons already stated in-story, however, he won’t be using it outwardly unless the situation is really poignant. Instead, he’ll aim it internally in order to prompt the perk rolls, and make sure he gets everything possible from the download. Also, I’m considering making it so that Eununcia isn’t as dramatic in scale as it used to be, before the Chaos Gods awoke. The language was clearly easier to use with impunity in the old days. Ollanius was able to stab the emperor to death and then use Eununcia to destroy Babel all by himself, all in the brief time it took Emps to resurrect. Someone capable of such a feat would have worfed Horus like a deer on a windshield.

Broadly, Nimrod has three starting perks, so to speak. The underlined parts are things he won't be able to do until he matures / evolves his body/spirit/mind/magic enough to cope. I also reworded and removed some stuff, because I like my vernacular thematic, and because I don’t think it makes sense for some stuff to be there.

Sealed True Name, Celestial Grimoire, Skulduggery Pleasant, Source (1400 CP)

Somehow, you discovered your True Name, and, through a process that may or may not have involved temporarily killing yourself and carving a delicate series of runes into your own heart, you have sealed your True Name. This offers a number of considerable benefits. First of all, your name being sealed means it cannot be used against you, even if others know it. Second, it enhances your magic tremendously, affording you a considerable boost in both raw power and your growth rate. While this will not grant you access to an unlimited font of raw magical power until you ascend in an appropriate manner, it will make it so your well of magical energy grows by leaps and bounds continuously, even without any training or effort on your part. This perk also grants you a notable healing factor, which scales in effectiveness as your overall magic capacity grows larger. With enough magical power, your body could heal itself from being shot in the head fast enough that the entry wound closes before the bullet exits the back of your skull. The accomplishments you needed to make, and the steps you had to take to learn your True Name, have also given you the ability to perceive and interact with the magic of others, as well as their spirit and consciousnesses. With the right approach, time, and power, you are able to manipulate them as well, and even go past flesh and spirit to the soul itself. Eventually, you may even learn how to cycle through them, seeing everything they have seen and learning everything they know. Remember, however, that souls are not as fragile as other things, especially when they have everything to lose. Willing consent can go a long way.

Last and Greatest Magician, HighSchool DxD, Modus (600 CP)

Human magic began as a cobbled-together smattering of inconsistent spells and rituals, altogether inherently inferior to most other races’ own magical prowess. It is not only scaled down, but also requires various aids to use, be they mind-expanding fumes, tools, potions, or mnemonic techniques. Not only that, but without the necessary talent you might not be able to reproduce the paltriest spell even with perfect technique. You have overcome all this through the power of mathematics. You are a living legend in what magic refers to, not only do your spells need much less magic, but you can use various equations to understand, reproduce and reverse-engineer magical feats, as well as reproduce them or invent new ones. Your spells hit with every inch of power of masterwork dweomers perfected over millennia, if not even more with personal tweaks. Not only that, but you are naturally attuned to magic and thus can analyze, break down, learn and reproduce any magic system you encounter in record time. Thus, you are even able to reproduce the abilities of other beings into magic that anyone can use, without a loss in power or increase in complexity. With time, you may even push them further than their natural users.

A Rarefied Mind, Cultist Simulator, Lore (100 CP)

It would be a shame that in your quest for transcendence you suffered a lapse of memory. It’s not like some secret teachings can be found in any random library. Fortunately, you managed to attain a perfect memory, limitless, and retroactive, while also allowing for instant recall and perfect indexing. You will never forget any moment of your life, no matter how small, and you will be able to recall those moments as if you were currently standing there again. As a retroactive effect, your past memories are also affected, and will immediately be restored even if you somehow manage to lose them. Or are made to.

----------------------------------------------------

Everything Everywhere One Thing at a Time

Thanks to everyone who voted! This is chapter 8 in my Harry Potter/Stargate multicrossover story, which will now be updated monthly.

The story so far can be read in full on Fanfiction.net and here.

Apparently, the Hogwarts train station isn’t in Hogsmeade, it’s on the opposite side of the castle from the village. Chapter 5 has been corrected to reflect this, if it matters.

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Chapter 8: Ronald Weasley and the Longbottom Chamber

“-. 31 October 1994 .-“

Third year had been weird without Harry, but Ron consoled himself with the knowledge that Neville had it worse. After he started hanging out with him and Hermione on the train ride, everyone went from ‘look at that squib’ to ‘look at that squib thinking he can replace the Boy-Who-Lived.’ It was stupid, who said they needed a replacement? Or, what, did they think Ron wasn’t able to have other friends?

No really, who started it? They never found out, even though Ron suspected Fred and George had at least some idea.

Adding to the weird, their new Defense Teacher Remus Lupin was the best Hogwarts had in decades and he didn’t see a dubious end like the ones before. Ron didn’t want to trust a hope too fast, they’d already thought the curse on the Defense position broken. The tosser Lockhart had looked like he’d end second year safe, only to end up wiped of all his memories and with every major bone broken after he tried to pull something with one of Dumbeldore’s weird American guests.

Fourth year was even weirder. It started out great with the Quidditch World Cup, Ron got to see Viktor Krum in person, Ireland beat Bulgaria in the finals but Krum still caught the snitch, and they all had a great after-party. Harry even came over to stay at the Burrow for a whole week leading up to it, they all got to go as a family! Even Hermione showed up in time for the portkey.

But then the party was turned into a stinker. A bunch of Death Eaters (or wannabes?)  went on a tent-burning, torture-happy amble just when the night was winding down, masks and everything. They even created the Dark Mark in the sky! Dad said that was a big deal, that it was something they’d not seen since the war, when the Death Eaters went killing under orders by You-Know-Who. Or even without them, sometimes.

There was also a whole kerfuffle where Barty Crouch Sr.’s house-elf was found with the wand that cast the mark – they’d stolen it off Ginny! When was his sister gonna get a break?

Then, because the school year just needed to be completely ruined this time – from the very beginning too! – Dumbledore cancelled quidditch! It was ridiculous! ‘For international cooperation’ he said, it was so dumb!

How did they expect to have international cooperation without Quidditch? The World Cup had just given them more international cooperation than they knew what to do with, how was Ron the only one to see it?

And then this nonsense about not being allowed to sign up for the tournament unless you were of age, honestly! They made him sound like Hermione!

Unfortunately, it didn’t matter what Ron thought. Quidditch was cancelled, the Tri-Wizard Tournament was happening instead, and Dumbledore’s Age Line had beaten even the twins. It was over.

Or that’s what he would say, if the name draw wasn’t being done on Halloween. Or fake Halloween, according to Hermione who’d researched the stuff like mental since Harry Hunt Day. Either way, if the night passed without something stupid happening, Ron would hug a ghoul.

With how things were going, he might have to do it anyway!

Ron was hard-pressed not to groan when the golden plates returned to their original spotless state, he wasn’t done eating yet! How was he supposed to fret for four people if he couldn’t eat properly? Fretting took a lot of energy you know, and neither Hermione nor Neville were doing their part in the last two years since Harry left.

The noise in the Great Hall bubbled up, then cut right off as Dumbledore got to his feet. On either side of him, Professor Karkaroff and Madame Maxime looked as tense and expectant as anyone. Which didn’t really make any sense to Ron, it wasn’t like they were going to miss out on having a Champion for the Triwizard Tournament or anything.

Ludo Bagman made a bit more sense, even if he looked mental the way he beamed and winked at the students, at least until Mr. Crouch glared at him to put a lid on it. Which Mr. Bagman seemed happy to ignore, up until he met the eyes of the twins and suddenly turned disinterested, almost bored.

Bloody welcher.

“The goblet is almost ready to make its decision,” said Dumbledore. “I estimate that it requires one more minute. Now, when the champions’ names are called, I would ask them please to come up to the top of the Hall, walk along the staff table, and go through into the next chamber.” He indicated the door behind the staff table “There, they will receive their first instructions.”

The Headmaster took out his wand and gave a great sweeping wave with it. All the candles except those inside the carved pumpkins were suddenly extinguished, plunging the Great Hall into a state of dramatic darkness. The bright, bluey-whiteness of the flames in the Goblet of Fire now shone more brightly than anything in the whole Hall. Everyone watched, waiting. And waiting. And waiting…

Ron checked Hermione’s watch.

“Any second,” Neville whispered from next to Ron.

“How whiny do you think the Slytherin table will be when it’s none of theirs?” Hermione murmured from Ron’s right, which Ron could only turn his nose at in disgust. “What? It’s a fair question.”

“She has a point,” Neville said. “They've been scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

Ron snorted. “The barrel wasn’t that full to begin with.” With how annoying the Slytherins got after Harry ‘abandoned’ Hogwarts, you’d think they didn’t think anyone else in the school was worth anything. Which just went to show they were all nutters. What, did they think being loud would make the rest of the school forget how they basically cowered in the dungeons the entire last term of second year?

You’d think Malfoy, at least, would shut his trap ever since his mum got disowned and the Black inheritance went bye-bye.

“Maybe they should get the Champion,” Ron said. “Then they’d get kittens trying to root for them and Krum at the same time, and Dumbledore would finally have no choice but to expel the lot.” And commit them to the mental ward at Saint Mungo’s, but you didn’t tempt fate by voicing your greatest dreams out in the open, that would be crazy.

The flames inside the goblet suddenly turned red, like they hadn’t been since the first night it was unveiled. The thing began shooting sparks, then it spat a big tongue of fire straight up. The entire hall gasped as a charred piece of parchment fluttered out of it. Dumbledore caught it and read it by the light of the flames, which had turned back to blue.

The Headmaster spoke in that strong, clear voice he’d taken to using more and more since Harry left. “The champion for Durmstrang will be Viktor Krum.”

“No surprises there!” yelled Ron. He let himself imagine that the storm of applause and cheering that swept the Hall were all for him, dreams were true while they lasted, that’s what Harry always said. Ron forced himself not to fawn, but he still applauded with everyone else as Viktor Krum rose from the Slytherin table and slouched up toward Dumbledore, then turned right along the staff table and disappeared through the door, just like Dumbledore said.

“Bravo, Viktor!” boomed Karkaroff, so loudly that everyone could hear him, even over all the applause. “Knew you had it in you!”

You and everyone else in three countries.

The clapping and chatting died down just in time for the Goblet of Fire to turn red again, and spit a second piece of parchment.

“The champion for Beauxbatons is Fleur Delacour!”

Ron felt Neville pinch him and realized he’d somehow missed the veela’s departure from the hall even though he’d stared at her for the whole thing. Crap.

“Now don’t you all cheer for your Champion at once,” Hermione sniffed over the noise, looking sideways at the remainder of the Beauxbatons party. “Honestly, who raises such crybabies?”

‘Crybabies’ was being way nice, Ron thought. Two of the girls who’d put their name in the Goblet were sobbing big, fat, ugly tears all over their makeup with their heads on their arms. Ron scowled at them, it was Hogwarts’ turn but their bawling was completely spoiling the tension.

Had completely spoiled the tension because that’s when the Goblet of Fire turned red for the third time.

“The Hogwarts champion,” Dumbledore called, “is Cedric Diggory!”

“No!” Ron balked, surely there was at least one upper year Gryffindor that was better than the chief duffer?

But he may as well have been screaming at turkeys, the uproar from the Hufflepuff table completely drowned him out. Every single Hufflepuff had jumped to their feet, screaming and stamping, as Cedric made his way past them, grinning broadly, and headed off toward the chamber behind the teachers’ table. Holy smokes, the applause for Cedric went on so long that Dumbledore couldn’t make himself heard again for ages.

“Excellent!” Dumbledore called happily as at last the tumult died down.

“Well, we now have our three champions. I am sure I can count upon all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champions every ounce of support you can muster. By cheering your champion on, you will contribute in a very real-” But Dumbledore suddenly stopped speaking, and it was obvious why.

The fire in the goblet had just turned red again. Sparks were flying out of it. A long flame shot suddenly into the air, and from it came out another piece of parchment. A fourth piece.

Baffled, Dumbledore nonetheless snapped his hand out and caught the parchment. He held it out and stared at the name written upon it. There was a long pause, during which Dumbledore stared at the slip in his hands, and everyone in the room stared at Dumbledore. And then Dumbledore cleared his throat and read out – “Harry Potter.”

There was a long, stunned silence.

Ron, Neville and Hermione looked at each other. Then they turned around to look around the hall.

The silence stretched.

Then everyone and their grandma that wasn’t seated at the sputtering Slytherin table palmed their faces with the easily recognizable groan of ‘of course.’

Hogwarts spared no time experiencing the biggest mass breakdown in diplomacy that the castle had ever seen. It was quite the sight to see.

Well, since Harry Hunt Day, anyway.

The three exchanged another meaningful glance.

“Raptor Mountain?” Hermione mouthed what they were all thinking.

“Raptor Mountain,” Ron agreed grimly, trying his best not to show that he dreaded the idea every bit as much as her.

“Perfect.” Neville, shockingly, was anything but dismayed despite having been the least enthusiastic ever since that first disastrous first trip through. “I’ve been preparing for this all year.”

Ron and Hermione looked at him like he was insane. “Mate, I swear, if it’s another one of your ‘let’s you and him get a faceful of screaming mandrake’ plans, I’m gonna hunt down Norbert just to feed you to him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous Ron,” Hermione sniffed. “It’s Norberta now, she was a girl dragon all along, haven’t you been listening to Hagrid? Also, that would needlessly put all of us in danger. Better to just shove Neville into that broken vanishing cabinet, then we can breathe easy for the next two months.”

“Save me from the bravery of the Tarnished Trio,” Neville muttered over his forkful of peas. “It’s not any plants this time. You’re going to love it, trust me. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t occurred to you, Hermione, what with being muggleborn and all.”

“Occurred to me? What are you talking about?”

“Oh no, I’m not saying anything after you hurt my feelings. You’ll have to wait and experience it for yourself. Well, witness anyway. Experience would be rather terminal.”

“You know, I can tell you’re just playing on my curiosity.”

“I only do it because it works.”

“Yes,” Hermione huffed sullenly, completely uncaring of the stares that the ‘Tarnished Trio’ were getting from everyone in the hall the longer they went without exploding, honestly, what even was their reputation? “It always works, curse my starving mind, I have to feed my head more than Alice on mushrooms.”

Ron rolled his eyes, then spent the rest of Dumbledore’s very stiff closing remarks glaring at everyone who thought it was a fun idea to look at the three of them like they knew what was going on. Yes, that did include Snape and McGonagall and Dumbledore himself.

Speaking of whom, the Headmaster made sure to have the three of them summoned to the side for a chat before they had a chance to escape the Hall.

Dumbledore made a show of questioning them if Harry had warned them of any of this beforehand, was completely unsurprised when they said no, then sent them off with a sigh and a request to please let Harry know that someone was out to assassinate him again.

Ron would have let things die down and then had them summoned to his office later, but nobody besides Hermione or Neville ever asked him for his opinion anymore, so whatever. Maybe the real point was to plant the idea of enemy action in the ears of everyone shamelessly eavesdropping?

At least they got to walk the halls after most everyone else had already left. Ron would have expected Malfoy or some other Slytherin to bother them, but all the ones who looked in their direction looked scared before beating a hasty retreat.

“Harry’s gonna be so mad,” Neville said.

“Well, I don’t know,” Ron shrugged. “Nothing seems to be able to rile him up anymore.”

“No, Neville’s right,” Hermione replied. “I’ve been wondering if Harry might ever consider anything worse than not getting to attend Hogwarts anymore, but having his return be both forced and tainted in yet another plot on his life might just do it.”

“Kind of impressive, innit?” Ron grunted. “Whoever managed this has to be mad or a genius.”

“Or both,” Neville agreed. “I can’t believe we didn’t expect this.”

“We fell for the false hope,” Hermione pronounced with them dreary airs that might just get to be less about schoolwork than getting killed one of these days. “Seeing Professor Lupin once again at the staff table after absolutely nothing life-endangering happened all third year gave us a false sense of security.”

The three stopped in front of the Gryffindor Common room and spent a few moments gathering their strength.

“We could go straight to the Room instead?” Hermione suggested.

“You can go ahead,” Neville said. “I can catch up after I get my stuff.”

“What stuff?” Ron asked. “What plant could you possibly have found that’s worse than the mandrake?”

“It’s not a plant, Ron, I’m branching out.”

“Ugh, I hate it how you don’t even need to plan your puns.”

“Well that’s it then, into the lion’s den we go,” Hermione huffed. “Poachers are People Too.”

And now Ron was wondering who the heck the Prefect on password duty was this week, because this one reeked of know-it-all disease, there was no way it was just some joke. Not that Ron would have laughed if it was. Even though it sounded like it might have been a good one. He was starting to feel the creeping horrors he’d been glad to leave behind in second year.

The lions were more like starving vultures, though they were starving vultures already neck-deep in their butterbeer. Ron was going to say something about this probably being another bad sort out to get Harry, but it turned out everyone though the same already. They just wanted a party and didn’t care about the reason, which was just – hold on, were those sausage rolls?

Unfortunately, Ron barely managed to snatch two on the way in and another two on the way out with how Hermione literally marched him along. Then they both had to find out from a random first-year that Neville had gotten bored of waiting on Ron’s appetite and went ahead on his own. He had the worst of friends, honestly, the mountain was still going to be there later, bloody hell!

And bloody Headmaster for putting them on the sport, bloody everybody, bloody Ministry just because.

If they hadn’t cancelled Quidditch, none of this would’ve happened!

“-. .-“

Not an hour later, Ronald Billius Weasley yet again decided that yes, the gigantic meteor Hermione said hit the Earth way back did them a huge favour wiping out the dinosaurs. Charlie would smack him if he ever heard him say that, but it was the truth! Because this?

This was bloody mental.

“Since when do they shoot lasers?!” Hermione shrieked as they ducked behind a rock, and not a moment too soon because EXPLOSION. “This is absurd!”

“You always say that!” Ron gasped as his heart raced. Every time they came here, they had to run better and farther, and every time it was barely enough.

“Well it’s still true!” She gasped while working to untie the bag she pulled from her bigger bag. “This is not how dinosaurs work, it just can’t be!”

“Too small, too big, too many feathers, too few, too naked, not naked enough,” Ron rattled, risking a peek and only barely pulling back when the rock exploded way too close again, ugh, dust in his eyes! “Give it a rest already, something stupid always happens here!”

“Not raptors with eye lasers!” Hermione pulled out a rune-etched marble and tossed it blindly over and out. It exploded. She tossed three more before Ron managed to peek out without almost getting his face blown off again. He carefully pointed his crossbow and shot a bolt into the face of the only raptor that still saw them.

“Dust cloud’s good, next cover a hundred paces that way, go, go, go!”

They dashed as fast as they could to the next cover, but the laseraptors spotted them anyway with explosive results. The two of them loudly cursed ‘Ed’ to the ninth generation for making magic impossible in this place. If Hermione hadn’t found out that enchantments done in the real world didn’t immediately wear off in here, they wouldn’t have any way to scare those things off, never mind kill them!

It’s not like Ron was a crack shot or anything, the only reason he landed that hit was because of the accuracy enchantment Hermione spent every other study period imbuing into the crossbow since the year started. And the arrows too!

“The things – I do – for friends,” Hermione wheezed once they were behind the next ridge.

“The things I’ll do to friends!” Ron panted, grabbing her bag of marbles since she was useless now and lobbing some around the corner himself, boom, boom, boom. “What’re –“ toss, BOOM “-the odds –“ toss, BLAST “-we’re just summoning –“ boom – CLUCK-CAW “Even bigger ones?”

“I – don’t care – to learn,” Hermione Granger blasphemed. “Let’s hurry.”

‘Ed’ had put the other entrance on the other side of the mountain, but the bloke was so mental he decided you shouldn’t be able to just walk around, it was all huge impassable ravines! That meant they needed to climb all the way up to the glacier lake on top and then back down. While running for their lives! With no magic!

Sneaking still worked, thankfully. Sometimes.

After another dead giant bird-lizard thing and a few more of Hermione’s bombs scaring the rest of the pack off, they finally lost their trail while going up a narrow pass. After half an hour of that, they reached a forest, where it was easier to skulk around than on the prairie. Their woodcraft had grown fast the last two years, that was for sure, the Forbidden Forest had been reduced to practice!

“Hey there.”

“AAH!” Hermione screamed in fright. “What-who-NEVILLE!”

Ron pretended he hadn’t also screamed like a girl. “Neville?!” Now he shows up?! “This is where you show up?! You –“

“Quiet,” he hissed. “Are you stupid? They’ll hear you!”

Wait, is this what Neville meant before? This was ‘later’?

ROAR

“Now you’ve done it,” said the patchwork of camo and mud and leaves that was Neville Longbottom. “Might want to run.”

“You bastard, this is your fault!” Ron hollered as they took off in the opposite direction from where the massive stomps now came, along with a multitude of pitter patters-. “If you hadn’t scared us – YIKES!”

BLAST went the red beam against the branch near his head.

“Longbottom, I’ll get you for this!”

“I was going to lead you to a safe spot,” Neville rolled his eyes, not tight-breathed in the least as he ran alongside them. “You’re the one that tromboned like a stag in heat, what was that anyway?! So much for tactical mastermind-”

“Everyone’s got a plan until they have a giant turkey in their face!”

“Oh so now you agree with me – no, no that way, sweet Merlin Hermione, it’s like you’ve never been in the woods before, just follow me, both of you.”

“I thought you went back!” Ron wheezed as Neville led them down a trail that really shouldn’t be so easy to miss. “Or at least they took you out-“

“Gee, Ron, good to know my friends think I’m a loser or a coward now.”

“Be glad it’s not both!” Hermione panted. “How did you find us? How are you here? And what is this getup, don’t tell me you’ve been watching Predator, films aren’t a good example for real life!”

“Quiet, they’ll-“

ROAR-SHRIEK-STOMP.

“-hear us, run!”

They ran faster.

“Faster, run, run for it!”

“Run for what?”

“You’ll know it when you – what am I saying, you’re Ron Weasley, this way!”

“Hey!”

Ron followed, stumbled, followed better, followed worse, he consoled himself that Hermione was doing worse the whole way to-

He almost ran over it, the hole in the ground was almost perfectly concealed under detritus, Neville had to tackle his legs from under him and pull him back and down. Ron’s face burned with effort and embarrassment, then turned white when a raptor almost bit his head off at the last moment.

CRUNCH.

Teeth crushed the fake lid made of moss and branches.

The downpour of dirt and wood chips preceded a waft of foul breath and grasping claws digging for prey.

“They’re coming through!” Ron hollered, scrambling to get deeper down the tunnel as fast as crawling could take him. “They found us, they’re coming through, Hermione give me – crap, I lost your marbles somewhere, where’s my-?“

“Ron,” Neville’s calm voice came from the darkness. “Get down.”

Ron got down.

BANG.

Ron looked up through ringing ears and saw a gun.

BANG

Four featherless raptors tried to break into the den. Two of them lived long enough to regret it. Neville blew a golf ball sized hole through the third, drew a pistol on the fourth, missed and nailed instead the T-rex outside. The next shot hit better, all four dead, but now the t-rex was pissed it off, so Neville pulled a rope that brought down the wall hiding the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot.

"Tally ho, lads!"

The grape shot shredded the last raptors in the blast, the sound and shrapnel sent all the smaller creatures that still had wits running, and everything else in a mile. Neville fixed his rifle with a bayonet and charged the one small terrified chicken-lizard that didn’t scamper quick enough. It bled out waiting for the t-rex to avenge it, which it never did because Neville loaded the cannon with a proper ball and pulled the rope.

CRACK-THOOM!

The king of dinosaurs was removed its head in a spray of dark blood and feathers.

It stumbled, bled, tipped over and finally crashed with a wet thud.

“I’m no rebel sympathiser, don’t misunderstand me,” Neville said in the ensuing silence, bayonet dripping blood behind him as he stood with rifle over his shoulder at the mouth of the tunnel, haloed in the light. “But them founding fathers knew their stuff.” His words sounded like ancient rumbling spells to Ron’s ringing ears.

“How can you be so blaze about this?!” Hermione asked with a shaking voice. “We – those were – we almost got eaten by a T-rex – since when do you shoot guns?! Since when do you have guns?!”

“Ey what?” Ron asked with all the dim bravery of a man who just saw his life flash before his eyes. “That’s what you’re hung up about? It’s not like we got expelled.”

“This isn’t a joking matter! We almost died!”

“Not like it sticks here,” Neville said breezily and wait, what? “Be right back.” He stepped through the light at the end of the tunnel and was no longer there.

Gunshots came again, in twos and threes.

“What do you think he meant?” Hermione wondered.

“Forget that, what is this place?”

“Unbelievable, Ronal Weasley I swear I’ll – oh, what’s even the use?”

“Yeah, what’s the use, Hermione? ‘Death doesn’t stick here,’ what else can it mean but what it means? Are you planning to find out for yourself? It probably hurts like a mean mother. Why are you even surprised anyway? Would Harry’s friend really give him a side way through space that would kill him? Would he let us use it? Honestly, it’s like you don’t trust Harry at all sometimes.”

“What I don’t trust is his common sense!”

Ron looked at her in disbelief.

“Don’t look at me that way, I mean – look at what just happened Ron!”

Ron blinked. “But that was all Neville though?”

“Ugh, I give up!”

‘This place’ turned out to be a really closey hole in the ground, big enough for a bloke to stash some essentials and still have enough room to lie down. Then again, half of those ‘essentials’ turned out to be some variety of muggle weapon, which did a fair job of bringing Ron almost all the way back to freaking out, despite the pretense he put up with Hermione.

“Neville,” Ron said cautiously when their friend finally came back. He looked disturbingly pleased with himself. “What the hell?”

“Just gotta know how to scare ’em, they learn what to stay away from right quick, just show ‘em you’re the biggest predator around. They’re smart chickens, but still chickens in the end.”

Who the hell cared about chickens?! “That’s not what I meant and you know it!”

“What?”

“What do you mean ‘what’?”

“What is this place?” Hermione cut in before Ron could start ranting proper, the witch! “This place has hideouts? Why didn’t anyone tell us? Did Harry know? Did he just tell you?”

“A hideout, yes now, there wasn’t anything to tell, no and no.”

Ron’s eye twitched with the effort of trying to keep up with the conversation.

“This wasn’t here?” Hermione asked in disbelief. “But then how – you can’t have built it!”

Eh?

“And why not?” Neville asked with furrowed brows. “Just because I’m bad at magic doesn’t mean I can’t do other stuff.”

But he wasn’t though? Anymore?

“But how?” Hermione, bless her, completely missed the real point. “When could you possibly have had the time?”

Neville looked at the girl in bemusement. “Hermione, no offense but you only know how to organize time for cramming, and even then your study schedules aren’t the best. Way too much revision time and not enough rest, not efficient at all.”

Hermione sputtered in complete affront. She seemed just about to start tearing into the other boy, when they both noticed that he still had his guns. Bayonet and everything. With blood still on it.

After that, Hermione seemed to have lost all words. And because she was speechless, Ron too went speechless from the shock of seeing her speechless.

They remained speechless all through the trip through a second, much longer tunnel – then cave? – they hadn’t known was there. Neville had a muggle torch. Flashlight. Two of them. And a gas lantern.

After nearly an hour of spelunking, the passage opened out into a round clearing that had clearly had a lot of work done. There was a waterfall and stream running through it, a smoking firepit with log seats and lean-tos, there was a table with stumps for chairs, a bunch of well-maintained garden beds all over the place, a small enclosure with tiny chicken-lizards even Hermione didn’t know the species of, even a cottage!

It was a bright, airy cove that somehow got plenty of light despite being surrounded and camouflaged by sheer cliffs and tall trees on three sides. The only exception was the edge to the right. The ground turned into one big rock sloped just high and obliquely enough that you weren’t able to see the place from outside.

Neville led them to the edge and showed them the view. The place overlooked the mountaintop plateau, with the glacier lake calm and picturesque in the distance, at the base of the tall peak.

Not for the first time, Ron marveled at the fact that there were people out there who could just make pocket worlds with enough space inside to fit entire mountain systems.

“To answer your question, Hermione, you spend all your free time in the library. I spend almost all of mine here.”

Bwuh-no! How did that make any sense? It didn’t make no sense, that’s how! That stuff – what Neville just did – guns! What, did he just add a pick and shovel and get a musket? It made no bloody sense!

“You sure they can’t track us here?” Hermione asked, because she always tried to burst your bubble if you managed to impress her. “Some of them got away, right?”

“Even if they could, they know to steer clear, if not of my scent then the smell of gunpowder,” Neville waved vaguely. “Also, the ones that got away are their former pack’s food by now. Triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up, just as the founding fathers intended.”

“You need to find yourself a girl, mate,” Ron finally couldn’t contain himself anymore. “All the time spent with them yanks that Harry’s got living in his house now, it’s rotted your brain!”

“Well, that rotted brain just saved your arse from the respawn mechanic, and Hermione’s too.” The what? “So piss off. Actually, why don’t I help you with that? Harry’s door is still a way’s off from here, but we should be able to get there without any more hassle, if you two keep a lid on it this time. How about it? I’ll even stay behind so I don’t mess up your groove when you caterwaul to Harry as if everything is still his fault. You know, like in the good old days.”

Hermione pinched her nose. “Neville, I swear to Morgana I will turn you into a toad.”

“Not in here you won’t.”

She threw a tree frog at him.

Neville dodged and ran away when she took off chasing after him with her hair in a snit.

Ron put his face in his hands and groaned.

Why were all of his friends complete nutters?

“-.  .-“

As every time before, their return to the real world happened through a hay shed. Also like every time before, the tingle and goosebumps of Magic’s return filled Ron with an almost overpowering urge to pull out his wand and cast a spell, any spell, just to reassure himself he could do it again. Next to him, Hermione wasn’t much better.

Somehow, they managed to contain themselves until they traversed the hay meadow, walked the trail through the forest on the far side – looking around with paranoid eyes the whole way – and finally got ushered through the Pottery’s gate by the property’s outermost detection ward.

“Lumos.”

“Expecto Patronum.”

Hermione had finally managed a corporeal patronus last year, but she had trouble using it for ‘trivial’ reasons, so Ron still came out ahead of her in this one thing. “Harry,” he told the messenger patronus. “Me and Hermione are here. Something happened that we need to talk about.” The stallion reared gloriously and cantered off like a white silver blur.

“Hermione and I, Ron.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“Hmph!”

No one came to greet them, which meant that either Dobby the house-elf was avoiding them, or Harry had told him to leave them be after last time.

They still didn’t know what the deal with that elf was. He was the Malfoy elf up until last year, Ron knew that much. But then Harry went on his second Yearly Walk and did something by the end of it that turned Dobby into a free elf. Who then promptly asked to be bonded to Harry himself, much to Hermione’s outrage over slavery. Which it was, but good luck getting her to understand it was better than the alternative. For everyone not a house-elf anyway.

The grounds were pretty big, and still mostly fallow with just three people and an elf living here. Harry himself still lived with the Flamels, but he spent a day or two here every week, and even more around the time of All Hallow’s Eve. It took some time to reach the manor proper, and they had to let themselves in through a side door. Ron felt on and off like he was being watched, and not just when he saw Hedwig keeping an eye on them, Harry’s snowy owl.

The entry hall was tidy and dust-free, unlike when Harry showed them around the first time he shared the secret of the Fidelius. Which he apparently learned in a parallel life dream.

They crossed paths with Charles Gordon first, the younger of Harry’s two permanent houseguests, though still around his late 20s. Or he looked like it, anyway, according to Harry he was much older but hadn’t aged much because of ‘time travel shenanigans,’ whatever that meant. Even Harry didn’t seem completely clear on the details.

Charles was on his way back to his lab after a coffee refill, but he stopped long enough to point them Harry’s way.

They found him in the ground floor parlor, though his voice reached them first. His and that other man’s, the old bloke that was some kind of muggle brain doctor. Ron cautiously side-eyed Hermione, just in case she started gushing again. Bloke was supposed to have been some real hotshot in the muggle world way back, something about being able to make people smarter? Or something. Hermione almost exploded from excitement when she first learned about it, as if she wasn’t the smartest person around already.

Mental, that one.

“-if the brain really does store data through quantum mechanics instead of neurochemical networks,” Doctor Jayson Strauss was heard grousing through the open door. Had it been left open so they knew to let themselves in? “No wonder my surgery fails so catastrophically, I didn’t account for any of this.”

“It was decades after your time,” Harry tried to appease the old curmudgeon. He saw them and nodded them in, but turned his attention back to the man. “It still is decades in the future from now.”

Strauss grunted. “I don’t suppose you were a quantum physicist in another life?”

“Sorry, I only know it’s a thing from Hermione’s rambles, and even then it was an off-time hobby of hers at best in that timelines. I already told you all I know.”

“Without first telling me any of it,” Hermione mumbled under her breath. “You don’t make it easy not to feel jealous, Harry.”

“Lovely,” said the old doctor, setting aside whatever he’d been reading while either not realising or caring they were there. “Then it seems I remain useless for the foreseeable future, never mind the whole alien problem.”

Ron still had trouble wrapping his mind around that.

“Pretty sure that’s not what the Goa’uld use to enslave people,” Harry replied. “They’re 100% biological computers with DNA-based rather than quantum tubule storage, least that’s what Charlie says. There must be some para-physical stuff happening with them, otherwise the memory extraction spell wouldn’t have had anything to work with. They’re not just biological machines. But whatever’s going on there, it’s not self-referential or Osiris would have recovered something by now.”

“Still no changes?”

“None. Mindless water snake that wouldn’t even know to feed itself if we didn’t mix in nutrients directly in the water. I’m kind of sorry I got on Sirius’ case about it now.”

It had been the first and only row between Harry and Mr. Black that Ron knew about. Harry found out they’d shut the ‘goold’ thingie in the Chamber of Secrets, all alone in the dark. He got on Mr. Black’s case hard, about leaving a ‘sentient, sapient creature’ in sensory deprivation and isolation like he’d been in Azkaban.

Personally, Ron thought Harry was too kind to body-snatching abominations from space, but he didn’t press after the first time Harry walked out on him for saying so.

“Anyway, I think you’re overthinking it,” Harry said when the doctor didn’t reply. “The surgery does work. Sure, it always backslides too, but we already know nerve regrowth potions heal the damage.”

“It’s not a perfect solution,” Strauss said in full curmudgeon mode. “The person isn’t as smart as the surgery made them.”

“But Charlie’s still smarter than you instead of the dumbest bloke you ever knew, and he remembers everything again, even kept all the skills. Maybe the quantum stuff doesn’t really matter.”

“You’re the one who introduced me to it.”

“And I’m starting to regret it. Nicolas always says not to base decisions purely on future visions. I didn’t listen to him about this.”

“I’m not going to ignore my own ignorance, boy.”

Harry sighed. “Fair enough, I don’t like doing that either, anymore. Oh look, the potion’s here!” Belatedly, Ron noticed that the dumbwaiter had come up from the basement. Good silencing spells there.

Harry went over and brought up a small cauldron, then set it down on the tea table for the man to see. “What do you think?”

The doctor put on a pair of glasses and peered intently. He then took a book from nearby, opened it and began looking between it and the potion. “I think the fact I still need to cross-reference fume-color combinations means I continue to not understand this half of medicinal field I never knew existed until two years ago. You’re the expert here, not me.”

Harry scratched his cheek, looking almost shy all of a sudden.

Ron couldn’t say he was being phony, it really was bizarre how much better Harry had gotten at potions ever since he didn’t have to deal with Snape.

“Alright you hopeless scamp,” Strauss groused. Hermione had stopped Ron from going further in, so he still hadn’t spotted them. “I can see you vibrating with impatience. Go ahead and brag, what is this foul smelling thing you made?”

Harry’s smirk would’ve been obvious even if Ron weren’t looking at him. “Nerve regrowth potion.” What? But that was a seventh year recipe! “Because if a hopeless dunderhead like me can do it, then you don’t have anything to worry about, now do you? Nicolas says I should be able to turn them out reliably after another two or three runs. Does that help?”

“Why would it help?”

“Nicolas says that seeing people who aren’t geniuses succeed at complicated stuff might make you less paranoid about geniuses like yourself failing?”

There was an awkward silence. When the old man spoke again, he seemed torn between offense and relief. “I really shouldn’t need peptalks at my age.”

“Is it working then?”

“Yes, you insolent boy, it is. So be a good lad considerate of your elders and let me stew in peace while you go and play with your friends.”

Oh, so he did notice them!

“Dinner’s at the usual time, Charlie’s cooking.”

“Yes, yes.”

Harry quietly motioned them out of the room and then led them down the halls back outside, to the private garden behind the manor, between it and the greenhouse further off. It still looked like a horrific jungle in there, meaning that Neville hadn’t gotten his claws into it yet. Maybe he really was telling the truth about spending all his free time camping in chickensaurus hell.

“Harry,” Hermione said primly once they were all seated around the snack table on the patio. “I’ve decided: you have no clue what a genius is.”

“Eh?”

“Harry dear,” Hermione imitated Ron’s mother, ugh. “Nerve regrowth is the seventh year potion. You’ve barely entered fourth.”

“Hogwarts has a very washed-down curriculum,” Harry insulted what he’d once considered his only succor on this Earth. “Also, the nerve regenerator is considered high-risk more due to the expensive ingredients, as well as the hazards associated with giving your living tissue samples to just anyone. A lot of dark voodoo can happen with that. From a technical standpoint, it’s only about as difficult as a Polyjuice and it doesn’t take even half as long.”

“Also, you don’t have to deal with Snape,” Ron said around his scone. “I wager having Nicolas Flamel teaching you helps too.”

“Yeah, Nick’s great!”

Hermione huffed, but let it go. She was clearly jealous of Harry’s good fortune no matter her claims to the contrary, but it wasn’t like Harry was keeping them out or anything.

“It’s not fair!” Hermione suddenly groaned and slumped in her chair, making Ron into a complete liar. “It’s not fair that you get to learn things so much better than Hogwarts teaches us! And now that whole scene in there Harry!” Hermione leaned over the table and took Harry’s hand in hers, a fervent glint in her eye. “Did I see that right? Was that what I think it was? Is the Great Doctor Strauss getting worn down? He can’t be, I’m – so many people are counting on him!”

Erm.

Harry pulled his hand away and rolled his eyes. “It’s hardly going to make a difference to you, Hermione.”

“Well I never! Such an insinuation, I would never have expected it from you of all people, Harry, honestly!”

“What, you don’t want to be smart?” Ron poked the frizzy flame.

“I’m already smart, Ronald,” she said precisely what Ron had thought just moments before. “If, however, the brain surgery makes you smarter than me, then of course I’ll take it too!”

“Why don’t you two tell me why you’re here?” Harry cut in before Ron could properly rally for a counterattack, the traitor. “You don’t brave Raptor Mountain for just anything.”

Unlike Neville, Ron thought sullenly.

They told him what happened at the name drawing ceremony.

Harry slouched in his chair, looking bizarrely excited at the prospect of yet another attempted murder. “Did I ever tell you how I freed Dobby?”

“No,” Ron replied when Hermione turned her nose at the topic of house-elves. “We just assumed it was more Prophet nonsense.”

Hermione side-eyed him. “You did, Ron. I, at least, try not to immediately jump to conclusions ahead of evidence.”

On the topic of house-elves? Really? “So how did you do it, Harry?”

“I… kinda sorta fell asleep part-way through the walk last year and sleepwalked the whole Hogwarts bit,” Harry admitted sheepishly. “It turned out great though! I dreamed what would’ve – what did happen in second year if I never contacted Mister Flamel. Ginny was still fine, but it took the whole year to figure the mess out, and by the end of it Malfoy’s dad managed to get Dumbledore kicked out!”

Eh?

“It was a whole thing. Anyway, when everything got sorted out and Dumbledore came back, Malfoy Sr. came over to throw a snit just when Dumbledore and I were talking over the horcrux.”

The what? Whore crocs? What did that have to do with anything? What kind of whore wears crocs anyway, or did they all – should he ask his dad-?

“Stuff happened and I gave Mr. Malfoy Tom’s diary with my sock in it. When he handed it to Dobby, it was like giving him clothes, and that freed him!”

“Huh,” Ron said, glad not to have to ask any embarrassing questions. “Sounds like it would’ve been a really full year.”

“But that’s not all,” Hermione guessed. “If it was just a dream, it wouldn’t mean anything. What did you do?”

Harry looked shifty. “Somehow, I kind of understand how but don’t know how to explain… I managed to make the dream count as reality in this reality because the dream was reality that go around.”

Ron gaped at him. So did Hermione.

“It really wasn’t much! Just a moment really, but it was the moment when Dobby was offered clothes. So when he was given the sock back then, he was able to accept in here. Dammit, I’m not explaining this well.”

Ron continued to stare at Harry.

Hermione also stared at Harry, but she wasn’t quite as speechless as Ron. “You can warp reality?”

“Not really?” Harry hedged. “It was just the once, and it’s not like it’s that weird! Magic warps reality all the time, that’s literally what it’s for.”

Hermione put her face in her hands with a groan. “What am I going to do with you, Harry Potter?”

“Not like you can do anything,” Ron wrinkled his nose and drank some pumpkin juice. “Least not before you marry him or something, you can’t just tell a bloke what to do just because, that’s just not how it is.”

Hermione gaped at Ron this time, face scarlet red.

What? What did he say? “It was just a joke,” Ron huffed, though he couldn’t stop mumbling one last bit. “Not like you could do much better, to hear Ginny talk.”

Hermione covered her furiously blushing face with both hands. “You know what, I’m just going pretend you didn’t say that.”

Ron did his best to hide his relief. “Probably a good call.”

“And don’t think I don’t see you smirking too, Harry. Enjoying your best friends’ discomfort, what will the Flamels say?”

“That’s really not it, Hermione.”

“Oh? What is it then? Go on, I’m dying to hear it.”

“… I guess I’m just really happy.”

Oh.

Well… shucks.

“Also, I didn’t feel a thing today,” Harry quickly tacked on, because he still wasn’t that good at being happy in the open yet, it was a real shame. “And believe me, at this point I would’ve. Being forced into a magical contract against my will? Honestly, I probably would’ve felt it even two years ago. But nothing like that happened.”

Huh.

“I’m not feeling like I missed any huge thing either, and I’m getting where I can do that all the time now. Feeling when I’m about to do something really ignorant or really dumb, I mean, it’s how I’ve been able to catch up with potions actually.”

Hermione hummed thoughtfully. “What are you saying?”

Oh good, it wasn’t just Ron who was clueless.

“I’m saying that something happened or will happen that nipped this in the bud for me. Or someone. You said that Dumbledore was as shocked as anyone, and I know it wasn’t the Flamels or anyone here. Definitely not Sirius, contrary to what some people might accuse him of, he’s not so daft that he’d sign me up for a deadly competition as a prank. He’s liable to curse the culprit into a permanent stay at Saint Mungo’s.”

Ron bobbed his head. “That’s what we got out of the situation too, yeah.”

“That only leaves me, then. And since I only find out about this now, the only option left is that I will do something. Or get someone to do something. In the future.”

“What does that mean, Harry? Wait – you’re not saying you have a time turner!”

Harry was surprised, then thoughtful. “No, but you might not be not completely cold either.”

“What do you mean then?”

“It means that I haven’t been on the Walk this year yet, because real Halloween is still two days away.” Harry sat back in his chair and smiled mildly. The glint in his green eyes almost made him seem mad. “It means, Hermione, that in two days I begin learning how to mess with time.”

The Unified Theorem - Chapter 18

The plot hits with a girl. Repeatedly. 

Also, demon scab.

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Chapter 18: The Shifting Flow of Fortune

“-. The False Lady .-“

She had been seduced.

Taking the girl’s face had been a last-minute whim. She’d been using a throwaway face before that, convinced that the tall tales about a ‘purified’ traitor in the black dragonflight were just that – tall tales. In other words, in need of verification but almost certainly untrue, and thus guaranteed to not demand any sort of long-term commitment. For all that humans were the mortal race that posed the greatest threat to dragonkind, their rumors tended to be the opposite of accurate.

Then she saw the dragon in question by mere happenstance, flying over the border while she was masquerading as a Stromgarde army camp follower, and knew she had to look into this herself.

Infiltrating Alterac conventionally would have been too much tedium for too much risk. The Ravenholdt assassins were a troublesome adversary, she knew this even before she learned that the traitor black dragon had been in their ranks. Moreover, going in as an unassuming outsider was too much risk for too little reward, she was unlikely to gain any more information than she had already gleaned, never mind direct access to this ‘Emerentius.’ Worse, if she did get access, it would likely involve at least a show of allegiance to this ‘Prophet,’ even if just to appease his pet Duke.

Since open sedition was needlessly troublesome to navigate, it made more sense to join the other, stronger side. Conflict was inevitable either way.

Stealing the identity of a foreign noble was therefore the best option, but not one done lightly. Adopting a high-profile identity would tie up a lot of her time. If she did it as a short-term scheme only to dispose of the identity after a week or month, it would be an unacceptable waste of assets and leverage. May even invite investigation and suspicion, perhaps even discovery of her true nature in the worst-case scenario.

Compounding matters, her opportunity window to insinuate herself into Alterac’s court was very brief. She didn’t have the time to fully charm, enthral or otherwise divert suspicion about inconsistencies in ‘Ysolde Prestor’s’ behaviour. Or her father’s, a Lordaeron noble who’d initially refused to entertain the Perenolde suit, and even had someone already in mind from down in Stormwind.

Many times had she already wondered if the price was truly worth it, but she dared not rouse her sire from his millennia-old torpor for mere rumors.

Then the young King of Alterac neatly derailed her entire mission by being so infuriating as to drive her to absolute distraction.

His mind was too sharp for casual enchantment, he didn’t eat food that wasn’t tasted and tested in front of him, magically and alchemically. He didn’t drink from bottles he didn’t witness being thoroughly cleaned before being opened and tested in front of him the same way. He didn’t clasp arms with anyone who hadn’t removed their cloak, he didn’t shake hands without gloves on, he didn’t kiss any cheek that had any sort of makeup on.

He didn’t even marry her normally. Instead, Aiden Perenolde held a sudden, unannounced ceremony that very morning, with just the priest, parents and witnesses.

It was so unexpected that she’d almost been caught missing from her room! She’d meant to finally access the dungeon where the rumored bronze dragon was kept, while everyone else was too asleep and drunk to catch her in the act. She barely made it back to her chambers in time, and she had no time at all to find an opening to work her ‘charms’ on her ‘father’ who’d been getting cold feet.

Even that didn’t matter because the young king got his way all by himself, somehow. She didn’t know how, she hadn’t been allowed in the room for it, it was galling.

Aiden Perenolde then had the insolence to ‘reassure’ her that it was all to ‘spare’ her the ‘usual’ courtship troubles. Which was to say, the local games of gossip, knives and poison that ‘might be too much for a gentle lady from outside the country’. It wasn’t just the women scorned she had to worry about either, he told her with such genuineness that even she believed him for a moment, it was enough to make her want to scream.

The man was demanding and gracious, thoughtful and condescending, mildly mannered but also refusing to take no for an answer, perfectly able to have his way even against her much older ‘father,’ who should have been beyond coercion because he was the subject of a different king…

By the time the priest pronounced them man and wife, her whole body was aflame with wanton devilment. If Aiden Perenolde wasn’t already a black dragon, she was going to find a way to turn him into one because this? All this?

This was unacceptable.

She had been seduced and she didn’t hate it, it could not be borne!

Even now, finally engaged in the lovemaking that the young king had refused her every time before – even when she snuck into his bedchambers – he turned away all her advances and only made a move when he was good and ready.

That, as it happened, was after they’d bathed together. Soaked in the hot soapy water long enough that nearly every contact drug she’d brought out for the occasion had long since washed away. It was outrageous, infuriating, the insolent man took pleasure in every discomfort he inflicted on her, it made her face burn and her blood boil with every one of her failures until she was driven to complete distraction.

But.

But. Finally.

Finally, she’d wo-

“Lover’s Frenzy, I assume?” the young king said in her ear, one hand locked on her breast and the other between her legs.

She didn’t freeze at first, but only because she was mid-whimper and didn’t realize what he’d said until after he’d locked his grip on her, clenched his fingers, ran his thumb repeatedly over- over- through- aah!

“Fast-acting aphrodisiac, absorbed through flesh but not skin, does not dissolve in water, an able choice I admit, but I assure you it’s unnecessary. Also, I am not ignorant to the other effect of the concoction, which renders the user susceptible to suggestion after the act. That you’d apply it to yourself means you’re protected from the same. Meaning you’ve either a secret talent for poisons, a secret mastery of alchemy, or you aren’t human. What shall I look for first, milady? Pointed ears beneath your silken hair, or scales beneath this velvet skin?”

He knew?! He – no! “Mnnn~ah!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and ground against him with a moan, just before she might have hesitated too long. “You can – look under my – skin – all you – like – husband!”

She burned inside and out, at losing again, at how low she’d brought herself, at how she hadn’t entirely pretended just now. It was worth it, she told herself. It had ruined his certainty about what he’d just called her out on. He wasn’t so sure anymore about what he’d just seen through. He’d seen through her.

Her new husband turned rougher, drawing ever more wanton sounds out of her for the rest of their foreplay, then he ruthlessly withdrew the moment he’d scrubber her womanhood clean of the drug. He exited the bath and walked out of the room. Left her there. He – he just left her there! He left her there, alone, to stew in – without – pent up like some lubricious ape – she – he – that lowly wretch!

She took as torturously long as she could to get herself presentable, because if he was going to leave her unsatisfied and make her wait on top of it, she’d return the favour ten times over.

She finally went looking for him after no one came for her for over an hour, stewing on the inside from yet one more defeat.

She found Aiden in his private study – this was the first time she was allowed in – just as he was sending off a servant to arrange a meeting with Archibald Greymane about Isiden’s fostering – he was giving his worthless nephew more thought than he was giving her!

Before she could say anything, a guard came running in, dashed past her and whispered something in the king’s ear… which she didn’t hear with her superior senses because of a ward on the desk, damn that man!

Whatever the message was, it made Aiden turn stiff and cold.

Ten minutes later, she was locked with her ‘father’ and their retinue inside a guarded suite ‘for her safety,’ while her new husband went to deal with whatever it was. She was denied details, unlike her ‘father’ who also withheld her the details because ‘gentle ladies needn’t worry about such things,’ the audacity!

More than ever before, she regretted her impulsive decision to kill the Prestor girl and take her face. If she’d known this would happen, she’d have come as someone more inclined to bloodthirst, the Gilnean mistress perhaps? Archibald Greymane kept strange bedfellows, but putting on the airs of a ripe matron wasn’t beyond her skills. Then she might even have been allowed down in the dungeons, to add her own expertise to the bronze knave’s interrogation.

But no, she’d have had to cater to a doddering old fool instead, and his woman that she’d be replacing was the sort to have schemes of her own. Too much work for anyone to uncover and co-opt in the time available.

They were kept locked in almost long enough for her to seriously consider bringing out her spells, damn everything else.

The smite came with no warning. One moment she was fuming over having to restrain herself, the next she was screaming in pain, toppling from shock, collapsing to the floor from the searing blow to her very spirit. She cried out as her sight burned golden, her body and spirit both convulsed as she was judged by powers spurned, she relived her entire life in an instant but was not allowed any self-delusion.

When the gift of foreign strength entered her, she hadn’t the wits to question it until it displaced the largest, newly scorched tendril of fleshy pus around her soul. Settled in to burn hot and bright for a day, what – who – why – who dared?!

“Agh – wh-what happened - Ysolde?!” came her ‘father’s’ stammer as he knelt by her and pulled her up. “Daughter, speak to me, plea – agh!” Lord Prestor flinched as she met his eyes.

She flinched too, as the deepest essence of him was revealed to her. Her breath stopped when she realized the deepest truth of her had been bared to him.

She couldn’t react to the impossible feeling that she was the one found wanting.

“Wh-what was that? Who – what are you? Where is – what have you done with my daughter?! Where is she? Who are you? What are you?!”

It took all her strength to push him away, and she swore to herself that her scream was from effort rather than fear at the man’s bared blade.

Her dragon breath was pitiful, but somehow barely enough. The man fell back from her with a scream, dropped his knife and kept screaming as the fire caught on his hair and clothes. She felt a spike of terror when it looked like he might put it out. But the last of her molten spittle landed on the oil from the toppled lamp, fallen off the end table by the door.

The dying screams of Lord Prestor were long and torturous, but still ended before her shaking stopped. It took even longer to muster enough strength to climb back to her feet. The screams and choking from the servants were a wretched mirror of her own, as the whole room burned around her, filling with smoke and the smell of roast pork. She wrapped her arms tight around herself in dazed confusion and soul-deep pain.

She snarled in fury.

The dying screams ended to arcane missiles, and the flames to icy waves

That she needed more than one frost nova ignited what was left of her hobbled mind, until she felt such fury that the locked doors were pulverized on the way out.

She was-

“Good Gods, milady is that you? What – fire! You, get water! You, go warn he King that whoever did this is already in the castle! Milady, let me-“

She didn’t know any of the guards, but she did after their eyes met. Worse, they suddenly knew even more about her. The leader’s reaction was so sharp and loud that even the messenger paused to turn.

She almost didn’t manage to act first. Again.

The hallway filled with fire just before it would have filled with naked swords.

And as she cast her eyes down to avoid further repeats of the same, as she stomped past screaming, writhing bodies and through her own flames, as she kept her head bowed low as if in shame, Onyxia, Daughter of Deathwing, swore that she’d find whoever had done this and make their entire bloodline pay.

“-. The False Suitress .-“

When the Archbishop came to her, she thought he’d take her along on his procession to the southern continent, perhaps even introduce her to the people in her eventual parish. Her training at the Grand Cathedral was drawing near a close. She also knew that her parents refused to consider any suitors from outside their home country.

With all omens aligned with the prospect of her return, it was the perfect way to satisfy all parties. So when the head of the Church arranged a meeting, she was confident in the path that the Light had seemingly prepared for her. 

She hadn’t imagined that Alonsus Faol would ask instead for subterfuge and deception. But ask he did and accept she did, to attend the Alterac Grand Engagement Ball as his secret eyes and ears.

She could see the logic, she was a highborn lady fully flowered and unspoiled, but still a few weeks short of her majority. Therefore, any attempts at a whirlwind wedding would be illegitimate, even if they found a corrupt enough priest to officiate. More importantly, she hadn’t taken her vows of anointing yet, and even if she had, the oaths of the Church didn’t preclude nuptials. If anything, it was the opposite – the Light’s virtues were the same ones that sustained a good and fruitful life, including children.

By presenting herself as one of the eligible maidens of Stormwind, she was even guaranteed at least some time in private with the king. With Ser Saidan in sight as her chaperone, of course.

She’d steeled herself for weeks of double speak and false smiles.

She didn’t last three days.

The Court of Alterac was a den of serpents, to the point where she barely endured the first feast, before dropping all pretense that she would entertain any engagement prospects.

She imagined this was her punishment for taking the mission for the wrong reasons. She’d accepted not for duty, or even relish at the challenge. Instead, she’d agreed mainly because she was curious to find out more about this child saint that His Holiness was so taken with, perhaps even meet him. This young man acclaimed as a Prophet when he was no older than her, the man who gained his own dragon somehow, after he brought a man back from the dead. The prospect was just too irresistible to miss.

May the Archbishop and the Light both forgive her weakness, but in the end the subterfuge hadn’t been needed at all, to complete her true mission here. She witnessed all she needed before she even reached the keep. The powers of true far sight may still elude her, but the practice she got with more modest ranges let her witness more than enough.

By the time her retinue was in sight of Alterac Castle, she wagered she could make a fair guess about which of the king’s men were corrupt. She knew the faces and the ‘crimes’ of at least one third of the people currently languishing in the royal dungeons too.

Were the local priests complicit, or coerced? Blackmailed? Perhaps their letters were being intercepted?

Court, if anything, was even worse. Appearances were so well confected it was nearly saccharine, but beneath the veneer was all pus.

It was a small blessing that hers was not the only foreign delegation. Key word being small. Stromgarde was a no show, the Kul Tiras contingent left early, Dalaran sent a single mage – recently dismissed under suspicious circumstances from the Council of Six – and the entourage from Lordaeron proved almost as fickle as their hosts. Lord Prestor was a fair enough man, but the Lady Ysolde was the sort that fit a bit too well in with the locals. Even the Gilnean delegation only welcomed her once she proved able to ease the king’s illness, and not with open arms.

In the end, she stuck with the last because it was where she could do the most good.

King Archibald Greymane of Gilneas swung between pathologically shy and explosively paranoid, the latter being why he insisted on coming personally. Not to present any eligible maiden, but to negotiate the fostering of King Perenolde’s toddler nephew.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to follow through on any of it because of his frail health and paranoia. He was too thin, pale, tired quickly, he was irritable and lacked patience, he bore the company of strangers very poorly, was always anxious, barely managed to sleep, he had trouble thinking and concentrating, even his memory was failing. Worst of all, he suffered from tremors in the hands, face and head, some of them extremely sudden and jerky. There seldom passed a day without him injuring himself in some way.

The silver lining, if you could call it that, was that the man’s wish to avoid people meant he rarely left his guest suite. This put the burden for everything on his son Genn. It was an unfair toil, but the prince latched onto any opportunity to be elsewhere with a tragic, guilty relief. Not because of the burden of care, but because the king unloaded all his paranoia and hostility and condescension on him, whenever he was there.

A fool, weakling, scoundrel, traitor, a complete incompetent for still not making any headway in his plans of treason, what the king accused his son of changed almost daily.

It was that ultimate perversion of love, when one ‘trusts’ only their closest family with their ‘true’ self. The face they don’t dare show in public. The proof of Genn’s unparalleled status in his father’s heart was in how the king didn’t subject his mistress to the same hardship, despite her almost never leaving his side.

Light or no Light, she couldn’t bear to see it. Not without doing something.

It took persuasion, luck, and the Light’s guidance for her entreaties to bear fruit.

It was thanks to the newest holy arts that she succeeded. The arts His Holiness had introduced to the Church just before she was sent here. The arts divined by that same Prophet that was so completely avoided in conversation here. The diagnostic spell was the only one she had achieved any manner of skill in, but she expected it to become her mainstay.

Archibald Greymane had mercury poisoning. And not just the trifle from touching contaminated coins either.

King Archibald Greymane of Gilneas was an alchemist. And not just any alchemist either, but one well on his way to creating a philosopher’s stone. She didn’t know much about the vocation, alchemists – true alchemists – kept to themselves. But she did know that ingesting mercury was one of the late stages. It was why so many of them used to die, before their secrecy thawed enough that they dared seek help from the Clergy, for the Light’s steadfastness and healing.

She did not know enough to judge. Perhaps the miracle elixir at the other end of the torment made everything worth it.

To her shame, her ability to purge toxins was almost non-existent compared to mending bone and flesh. True diseases had long eluded the Church, and mercury was one of the poisons that posed similar challenges. It was a prominent element in alchemy for good reasons. That gap in ability was not easily bridged.

Now, though, with this spell, she had the sight and insight that she’d lacked. That they’d all lacked.

She’d still only reduced his symptoms so far, but that alone raised her higher in the king’s eyes than all but blood kin. She also managed to repair the damage to the lungs, and more general decay from insufficient air. She was almost ready to broach the topic of extracting the toxin outright. She should have focus enough to try without making things worse, at least.

She’d offer once she had a private moment with Ser Saidan, she decided. She wouldn’t act without all due forewarning, she was not that kind of lady. Doubly so since it wasn’t all good news. While the better rested and mellow king had begun to treat his son better, this also revealed a deep animosity between Genn and his father’s mistress, who no longer commanded all royal favor.

The latest damage to the king’s lungs was almost completely undone when Judgment came down on all five of them.

She flinched from the Light’s sheer density. All at once, the mistakes of her life played out inside her head, with none of the biases or justifications.

But she didn’t fall. She didn’t sway, didn’t start, didn’t topple. She didn’t hurt.

When the gift of foreign strength entered her, she was not caught off guard.

She saw a verdant forest surrounding a rent cove whose ground was not ground but instead moist flesh. On it was table with a jenga tower rising up into infinity. In front of it, a wizard matched spells with some sort of green-skinned brute, magic and might clashing in snarling contempt as dwarves, gnomes, trolls, elves, giant bug creatures and man-bulls and many other things were trampled underfoot.

Above them, three giants of flesh and metal matched the Light against Fel darkness, while beings of golden crystal stood opposed to two horned fiends. All around, dragons swarmed the sky from horizon to horizon. The Black licked at the pus spraying up from the fleshy ground. The Red ate their own tail. The Green turned in their sleep. The Blue mourned and rejoiced. The Bronze wove threads of sand into looped knots.

Tentacles and tendrils of blood and bile seeped up from the bedrock. Two burning eyes glared down from amidst the corpses of gods littering the Great Dark. The Fire burned. The Air roared. The Water roiled. The Earth languished in sorrow deep below. Each and every time the chaos churned, block upon blocks of the trembling tower fell down from heaven.

And right there in the middle, cross-legged on the table at the base of the jenga spire of time, sat a man with blond hair and a beard and blue eyes. He was taking blocks out of the tower’s base, coating them in glue, then putting them back in place, one by one by one until a wholly new, unyielding foundation grew taller than his hands could reach. So he used the falling blocks to make a club instead.

Then he got up, bashed the wizard over the head with all the force of salvaged time, took the green brute’s staff, and swung it hard at the tower, smashing everything upwards from his hard work apart.

The man’s eyes met her own as the future fell to pieces around them. Then the eyes were gone. There was only Light shining forth. The axe came down and smashed through the table, rending down into the flesh below. It s̷̲͌ç̵̕ȓ̸̦e̴̫͊å̸̧m̵͚̃e̷͐͜ḋ̸͈.

Lady Mara Fordragon reeled back, away from the king on his chair, up to her feet from where she’d sat on the small seat nearby. She struggled to hang onto the – the vision – soulgaze, some inner certainty told her – to sear it as clearly as she could inside her mind.

She knew, now.

The Prophet was real, he was true, he was here.

And as the results of the Judgments of everyone else in the keep echoed in her spirit, she knew that not even a third of them would make it past his wall.

Not even the dragons.

Save one.

There were four dragons in the castle.

“Ohhh,” moaned Archibald Greymane, eyes wide and grief-stricken as he looked up at his son, whose first thought had been to check on his father despite everything. “Oh… Oh my son, I killed your mother… I persuaded her to take the mercury together, curse me! I didn’t want to face it. Like a coward, I didn’t – wouldn’t – every time I refused your help, every time I said a real man doesn’t need it, every time my tongue spewed its poison at you, I lied. I was just punishing myself for my sin. Punishing you for nothing, my poor boy, I’m not worthy to be in your sight…”

Such family hardship healed in an instant, it was a miracle. A miracle while Mara could barely stem a measly illness of the flesh.

“Wh-what was that?” Ser Saidan rasped somewhere behind her. Much closer to the ground than his massive two-meter bulk should be.

She would have turned, but the king’s eyes met hers.

The symptoms of mercury poisoning were the whole point, she suddenly knew. Mercury being poison was not disputed. Alchemists merely considered it all worth it for the mental effects. They did not consider paranoia and other psychological issues to be symptoms of the mercury, but a consequence of the self-reflection – and reassessment of everyone else – that mercury induced.

If they survived long enough to come to terms with all the lies told to them – by others and themselves – they might just get close enough to enlightenment to see into the final mystery.

She did not see how it was worth it. Even if imbibing the poison tore the veil off all self-deception, it was not a quick or easy process. Was this why Alchemists were so solitary? They became absolutely horrible people for – so long a time, too long for even the ties of kin to endure. Was the final discovery worth so much? Losing everything and everyone that made life worth living in the first place?

The second soulgaze of her life ended with the feeling that Archibald Greymane now asked himself the same.

“My Lady!” Saidan’s voice came, louder. There was rustle of plates and heavy footsteps, clank and thud of his large shield against the floor, then his hand was upon her shoulder. “My lady, please! Are you alright – that was – the Light, I can -“

She reached up for his hand reflexively, looked back to find him transfixed, then followed his gave to the Lady Tharia and was promptly transfixed herself. The woman – she was covered head to toe in gruesome scars, old one previously hidden, and her eyes-

The third soulgaze of Mara Fordragon’s life ended with her backing away in open-mouthed horror.

She didn’t have time to warn the others before they, too, met the serpent-like eyes.

Saidan Dathrohan jumped between them with no time to spare, molten flame spraying around his shield with the smell of pitch and dead multitudes. The dragon breath singed her sleeves, caught the king’s leg and the prince’s arm, knocked their senses askew so harshly that they couldn’t think through the pain and she screamed-

“Light,” the knight grunted. “Give me strength!” The man set his legs and dove forward, splitting the fire breath harder, wider.

Wide enough that they finally escaped its wrath and could finally think again through the pain.

“RUN!” The knight bellowed. “RUN, RUN NOW!”

It was all she could do to help Genn Greymane carry his father out the door.

The last thing Mara Fordragon heard on the way out was a dragon’s roar screaming out of a woman’s throat.

The last thing she saw was the Light weakly outlining Saidan Dathrohan with power he’d never grasped before.

“-. The False Goblette .-“

They still made her wait. After all the trouble she went through to get herself captured, sold to a circus, and hauled all the way to Alterac’s capital as the festival’s star attraction, they still made her wait. Every chance taken, every leeway afforded, all occasions come and past, everyone in the Capital and many beyond had come to see the savage greenskin in a cage. Yet still no sign of the all-knowing boy.

All the events planned for, every trick played, every insult sneered and trick inflicted on the more daring simpletons, and here at the end still nothing. It was ridiculous, absurd, unacceptable, it had been weeks!

What kind of diviner missed all this?

As a final insult, the ‘good’ king of this benighted land had ‘kindly’ declined the circus access to anywhere closer than the outer ring of the city. To ‘protect’ his more refined subjects and guests from ‘unfortunate exposure.’ She didn’t know if the exact words belonged to the king or just the guard captain that delivered them. She didn’t much care either, she wasn’t here for either of them.

She was on her second day of considering that maybe, possibly the insolent boy had actually had good reasons to ask that she not come over as a goblin. Once again, she decided that if it had really been that important, he’d have made it an actual condition instead of a mere request. If he was truly as all-knowing as he claimed, he should know that a dragon’s visage was no trifle to take on and off like a rag.

When the giant golden dome snapped in place around the central keep, her cage was too well tucked away inside the smallest tent for her to see it.

She definitely felt it though.

And the roar, everyone heard that.

The nearly riotous stampede to get a better look meant that she didn’t have to put any effort into escaping. Sneaking around until she reached a roof was only slightly more difficult. She ignored the inner voice saying that she wouldn’t have had to go through all this trouble, if she’d just snuck her way into the kingdom outright, goblin or not. The blacks tended towards elaborate schemes, the only way she’d stayed ahead of them was by doing it even better.

She stood on the roof of the random hovel and saw a giant dome of gold. A giant dome of Holy Light with a huge dragon right on top of it. Bigger than her. He stood. He watched. He was black.

They made her wait for this?

She stood and stared at the strange sight of a black dragon… not doing anything.

‘Emerentius.’ The kinslayer. An assassin of lords and kith they’d never known existed.

… She had been politely invited, and it was almost certain the boy-saint knew about her secret work to purify black dragon eggs. Since there hadn’t been black dragons trying to assassinate her every moment of the day since, the invitation may still be in good faith. It wouldn’t do to make any hasty decis-

The inside of the dome flared brightly.

Over one hundred lives were instantly snuffed out.

She gaped, wide-eyed.

Then even more lives began to end, men, women, and then even two children died to – foul murder – butchery – treachery!

Treachery!

She shed her goblin form and took to the sky with a roar.

The other dragon’s head snapped towards her instantly.

She braced herself for an attack, but none came. The other merely straightened, rose to stand on just his hind legs with ease she envied, and watched her approach. His altered body structure was a remarkable surprise that threatened to enthrall her, the Life magic within wanted to understand and adopt it post-haste, to be able to stand so erect, so graceful. But she pushed it down.

He looked surprised. He had the gall to be surprised, wasn’t his new ‘master’ supposed to be some peerless seer? Or did the boy play games as well?

She soared high, made a wide sweep of the castle and the dome around it, then banked low to land on the face of the mountain peak right above it and him. “Why the surprise, oh kinslayer? Did your ‘master’ not invite me himself, or was that a ruse?”

The other stared at her. “Rheastrasza?” He rumbled incredulously, heedless of the many humans pointing, staring, listening and panicking all around them. “Lady Rheastrasza, is that you?”

“You do not sound pleased to see me.”

“… This is not a good time.”

“It is always a good time to stop the foolish and brazen.” She tapped the transmission stone under the scale of her palm, tried to contact Korialstrasz. Her heart sank when it failed. Had they – he couldn’t have been slain, she’d have felt it! “Cease whatever this is at once!”

“I cannot.”

“I will not ask again.”

“I will not fight you.”

“Then this will be easy!” Her flame filled her gullet to bursting, then she leapt and dove down, bathing him in her hottest, most purifying fire of life as she flew by.

He crouched low over the dome and took it. Didn’t make a sound as her fire scorched his flesh. When she banked around for a second sweep, she saw that the damage was much reduced compared to all other blacks she’d ever burned. What did get through was already healing.

She almost abandoned her course. She’d been told all the details the mortals could find about his ‘Lightforging,’ if it was really true… If he really had been freed from the Old Ones’ influence…

Inside the dome, people old and young continued to die ever faster, and then a child fell to murder again, a girl not even flowered.

No, she could not ignore the many times before, when the blacks made dead fools of the rest of them with ruses much more convincing than this.

The black did not move at her second plume of fire. Or the third one. Or the fifth.

On the sixth pass, she made as if to breath on him again but bodied him instead, if the dome fell then Korialstrasz should-

The black jumped over her, grabbed her by the wing on landing, wound around one full circle before she understood what had happened, and sent her hurtling dizzyingly away, to crash and rolled to an indignant stop in the middle of the public square.

She scrambled back to all fours with a snarl. She didn’t know how she’d avoided pulping or otherwise harming any of the humans around her, but his disregard for them sealed her path. Her breath came in fits and sparks. The snow melted and steamed around her, both the falling flakes and the layers around her feet. Once more she tried to reach her Queen’s consort. Once more, she failed.

He doesn’t need continuous contact with the dome, she thought as she rose back in the air with wrath and frustration. This will be harder than I thought.

“Please, milady,” the black pled, and he sounded so earnest, damn him. “Do not create conflict where there is none.”

“Oh, but there is and you know it,” she growled, landing once more above him. “You are overstepping your mandate, black dragon, and infringing on mine.”

“My loyalty has changed, but it needn’t conflict. Please do not do this.”

“Then you cease. Then we may speak.”

The other briefly closed his eyes in resignation. “For what you may yet achieve in the future, I will not bring you lasting harm.” Any hope that he was surrendering perished when his eyes opened to show determination shining like the sun. “But even so, you will not interfere.”

“What a lofty claim!” She rumbled in turn, making sure not to let slip her inner disquiet at his odd behaviour. Pushed away how earnest he still sounded, what it could mean for him to be so strong in holy power, she couldn’t let herself believe it, not after so much. Not when she didn’t know Korialstrasz’ fate, no so easily, not so soon, not now, not when children kept dying. “Perhaps I should read into it more.”

“Do as you must.”

She obliged.

Rheastrasza of the Red Flight took to battle against her ancient foe.

And on the streets below, men, women and children ran for their lives, driven by quaking earth and the roars of dragons.

“-. The Rightly Guided .-“

(earlier that same night)

He was praying when he felt Wayland perish.

It was only his faith that kept him in the Light despite his shock.

It was the freshly revitalized will to try new things that guided his next act, but he only succeeded thanks to experience.

He projected out and up. His awareness resolved itself high into the sky, far above any bird or cloud. The entirety of Stormwind Kingdom far below was his to know, and he knew he could peer into the dark swamp to the east, or south into the Vale of Stranglethorn if he wanted.

He did neither. He turned instead to the North and flew forth, hastened to trace back that connection even though it left his body empty. The soulgaze was no paltry divination, it embedded a deep synchronicity that did not fade unless deliberately spurned. He didn’t know if Wayland knew, but he did know that he could use it to find him. So he did, flying at the speed of imagination, so quickly the world became like a tunnel of light around him, up and onwards to the North, all the way to the edge of the continent of Azeroth, then further.

When he stopped above the boy’s mountain home, his vision resolved into a scene of endless hunger and absolute destruction. A dark star eating the world, bite by bite, devouring the very forces holding matter together, sucking out even the Light of creation itself to feed its yawning maw.

When he tried to get closer, his vision began to tear and ripple as the pull began to tug at his own edges. The monstrosity was even inflicting itself upon the spirit world. Defying the pull took much of his strength, but at least it let him reach and see within. Darkness. More darkness. An Angel of Death.

She was there, curled up on the ground. Curled around Wayland’s spirit, who writhed as the Valkyrie struggled to keep it from tearing completely loose from his flesh and blood.

She was failing. Even if it weren’t constantly drained to feed the ravenous darkness, a valkyrie’s Light did not easily cross into the living world.

He almost spelled Wayland’s doom when he reached out to them, her focus shattered, but there was no other choice. If an angel’s light was reserved for the world of spirits, man would just have to bear the burden in the realm of life.

He prayed as fervently as he ever did in his life.

He barely succeeded, and it would have been for nothing if Wayland hadn’t invoked his protection spell in time.

It – Light – such weakness he’d never felt – even at his most sickly as a child – where was – he – his body – it was so far away, he – he couldn’t – he had to…

He would have been lost to the green dream, if not for all those days he spent at sea, weaving runic enchantments into his body and staves upon his bones.

“It – seems – we both – saved each other – “ rasped Archbishop Alonsus Faol as his head lolled on the floor, fallen weak and empty from his nightly prayers inside the Sanctuary of the Royal Chapel in Stormwind Keep. “But – what was that – it was – it is!”

Wayland! Wayland was under attack! He was dead, had been dead, he was dying again that very moment!

Alonsus only found his feet on the fifth try. He stepped on his mitre, knocked the Holy Book off the altar, knocked two candlesticks over and down on the way out, but he ignored all of it. The candles were unlit, darkness was nothing to the Light, and the Light would surely forgive him for prioritising its most beloved son.

The Archbishop stumbled, hobbled, strode, ran and sprinted with nearly mad urgency, out of the Church, across the grounds, through the queen’s garden and into the keep through the nearest door he found. Sentries balked in shock and tried to catch up, but they failed because the Light drove him. With every breath he felt stronger. With every step he got faster. With every moment he felt a growing premonition that something terrible would happen soon.

Please, Light, don’t let me work a miracle only for him to suffer or do something more terrible!

The servants cried out at the sight he made, but he didn’t have time to look or act any less mad than the crisis unfolding. He demanded to know where to find the king’s mage, and dashed where he was directed too fast for whys and thank yous.

If only he’d had the slightest foreboding! Then he might have accepted King Llane’s offer of spending the last night of the Interregnum with him and his, instead of bowing own to let them be with family and friends as was the way.

The guards outside the royal suite barred his path from sheer shock at his dishevelled appearance. He almost wanted to conjure a shield and barrel through. Almost. The Light was with him, his strength would smash even the locks on those big doors.

“I need to see the king’s mage!” he shouted instead, so loud that all inside would hear him. “Right now!”

Refusal, denial, questions, demands to know why he was in such a state, things were fit to become even more of a circus than they already were, before the doors opened form the inside.

“What’s going on here?” thundered the voice of Anduin Lothar. “What racket is – Your Holiness! What in heaven’s name?!”

Alonsus barely got his request out, him all at once by the shortness of breath he’d been spared on the way over. He was ushered in, led to a chair and hovered over by the King and Queen and Arathor’s heir while he regained his speech.

“I need –“ he wheezed, finally, standing back up. “I need – Master Medivh!” he cried in relief on seeing the sorcerer there. “Thank the Light you’re here! Forgive me your majesties, but I need the help of your mage! Sorcerer, you claimed to be unequalled in matters arcane, I need you to prove it! How far away can you traverse by spell?!”

The four exchanged glances, but King Llane, Light bless him, did not make light of his urgency. “Where do you need to go?”

“Alterac.” The Archbishop cradled his forehead, unsure if the image of woe he just saw was a new vision or recent memory. “As deep in the heartland as you can get me.”

“What happened-?“

“What is happening, there is no time, I need to get there now or not at all, please. Can you do it?”

“I can,” the mage himself finally said, equally curious and grim. “I’ll be wanting and explanation, but if it’s so urgent as to have Your Holiness come charging in like a feral beast, we cannot dither. Do I have your permission to scan your surface thoughts?”

“Why – visual reference?”

“As true to your desired destination as you can.”

“Anduin, summon as many guards as you can!” the king commanded, even as he was ushering away his wife. “We’re going too.”

Alonsus almost staggered in relief, and a raw self-recrimination. How witless and single-minded could he be that he didn’t request proper help himself? And more? A king, a man among men, the greatest of mages all before him, willing and eager. Yet even as he begged for profane passage to the other side of the world, it never once occurred to him to ask the mage to also come along. How –? Why –? In such a dire hour – had he internalized the prejudice against the arcane arts so deeply that –?

The Aegishjalmur came alight around his mind. Not at Medivh’s probe, but a second one, subtler. He looked for it. Found it. Lost it. He could not understand what had just happened.

But Gegng Galdri ignited like a furnace in his breast. And as the Light poured into the stave to turn away some evil spell, the Veldismagn came alive with defiance, and Lukkustafir showed the blind wherefrom sprung the evil it failed to turn away.

Alonsus turned his inner eye to see its path.

Behind Medivh’s own mind, a demon stitched into the fabric of the man’s flesh stared back at him, its face completely startled and misgaged.

It was the same face from Wayland’s visions.

For one, fatal moment, Alonsus Faol was stunned into complete inaction.

He barely had time to throw up his arms before a wave of indiscriminate destruction exploded out of Medivh with catastrophic might.

Truth and Reconciliation

I had a little time free, so I dug up the old Halo quest and edited it for third-person perspective, and more faithful characterization. This is essentially what I was able to keep mostly as is. Since it can probably still be found on the net somewhere, I can't in good faith paywall this introductory part. I'm posting it so that the guys on the other poll can make a fully informed decision.

You can follow the story over on the usual places, but I'm also attaching PDFs for those who prefer it. It's too much content to fit in this text box though.

Understanding Does Not Presage Peace - Chapter 21

Summon bigger fish - the literal story.

--------------------------------------------------

Chapter 21: The Golden Age Bequest

“-. Namikaze Minato, Fourth Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves .-“

“-bring my old kunai out of storage and put them next to the sealing supplies. Tell me immediately we get word back from the Capital, also the border reports will be a priority until further notice, but change nothing of patrol routes or what else for now, we’re going to pretend business as usual for as long as we can. I do want outgoing nin to take my kunai with them, make it two for each team, one to keep and one to plant along their route, they can use their best judgment. Just make sure at least twelve are left for my own use. Do we have any of Lord Jiraiya’s blood in storage? Good, what about Lady Tsunade? She destroyed it before leaving, damn. Then-“

“Not necessarily, Lord Fourth,” interrupted Morino Ibiki, one of very few ninja not knocked entirely senseless by his miraculous return from the dead. “While she did destroy all the samples she – and we – knew of, the possibility of Danzo having some squirreled away should not be ignored. With permission, I will defer on interrogating the captured ROOT nin to resume search of the base.”

Kami bless Hiruzen for managing to stop the self-destruct. “Granted. Hound, assign him the ANBU most fit for the job, I’m counting on you both.”

“Yes, sir!” Ibiki shunshined away with the masked nin as soon as Hound wordlessly summoned them into the room.

“Shikaku, where did Sarutobi keep his files?”

“I can report the contents of the ones here, however there were some at his home I could not unseal.”

“Collect the ones here and meet me there. Yamanaka, relay the rest of my orders. Hound, with me.” Minato grabbed the ANBU-in-chief and teleported away. The Kyuubi had destroyed much of the village, and even more of his seal anchors had been lost with demolitions and renovations, but not all of them. “Take off your mask,” he said on appearing in front of the Sarutobi Clan front gate. When the man obeyed, he grabbed him by both shoulders. “Kakashi. I know my revival is a lot to process and we need to talk at length, but there’s no time right now. I need to know I can count on you.”

“Of-of course sensei – sir!” Were the first words Kakashi had said since he laid eyes on him.

“I’ll have need of you soon, your eye will be the key to retrieving the Third, Obito has the kaleidoscope sharingan which means you do as well. Clear out Training Ground 22.” A cross-seal initiated the kage bunshin technique. “My clone will take you but has its own tasks. I want you to practice with your eye to see if you manage to activate the advanced stage. I’ve already sent Itachi on ahead, he will help you. If you can’t do it, don’t worry, just do your best.”

“U-Understood.”

“Go.”

Kakashi gave him one last intense look before his clone flashed him away.

Minato refreshed the chakra keeping his sleeping son from falling off his back and entered the Sarutobi clan compound. Naruto didn’t stir, though his half of Kurama did. A sharp contrast to his own, Minato’s half of Kurama was wholly silent. He’d thought they had the beginning of a possible accord, but the fox had completely closed itself off since his release from the shinigami’s stomach. Unfortunate, but he had more urgent things to worry about.

He paid his respects to Lord Third’s daughter, powered through her wide-eyed wonder at his return, accepted her offer to mind Naruto while he worked – always within his line of sight – and wasted no time going through the Third’s paperwork, both professional and personal. He and his clones were examining and matching individual pages with each other when Shikaku arrived with the ones from headquarters.

“I already applied all the codes passed down to the Jonin Commander, Lord Fourth,” Shikaku said cautiously. “By the Third and you both.”

“Yes, but he might not have shared all of them. Jiraiya-sensei came up with certain characters and words that might let one in the know pick out additional details by skipping lines and pages – like this.”

Minato laid out the pages that stood out to him from both stacks and began to circle specific characters with a pencil. Some messages were obsolete, others had to do with other missions – those he memorised – and finally he found what he was looking for.

“’White needles stuck deep in the third’s bad attitude’ except ‘third’ is not written in Sarutobi’s usual choice of characters, or even the cursive we use here in Fire. It seems Jiraiya-sensei has been on a deep cover info gathering mission in the Land of Water, which could mean the message simply didn’t find him yet-“ a clone’s clone suddenly popped, “-or that he’s dead or in the middle of mortal combat this very moment! Shikaku, gather me his blood and signal me through the kunai when you have it!”

“It will be done!”

The Hiraishin took Minato to the all-new secret room in the Hokage Mountain where Masanari Hanzo was hidden. He dropped Naruto on the spare bed there and was out and away before his son had time to wake up in a panic. He’d be fine, even with Hanzo incapacitated Shisui and Enma were both there, and though he might not know it, the dragon was with Naruto too, shapeshifted into the top button of his shirt.

“Gamabunta!”

“Minato-boy?!” The colossal form of the Boss Toad moaned deliriously where Minato’s clone had summoned him, bloody and battered black and blue. “I can’sh belief it, never ‘ad thish hallush’nashun b’fore, thiss stuff is fire!”

“Bunta, what happened to you?!”

“Whaddaya thunk’it, blasted Jiraiya-boy, keep tellin’ th’old farts ‘e’s suicidal since you’se died but they dunna listen none!”

He was addled with painkillers, damn! “Who is he fighting?!” And what could Jirayia be facing that Bunta would cross over in full, if he’d just made a clone as normal none of the wounds would have transferred and-

“Whoya thunk it, ain’t just anybodeh that can slap ol’ Bunta ‘round in ‘is natural ‘habits, bastard ain’t even got th’ parss fer a fair figh’, jus’ spikes an’ – prongs ‘n’ crest prickles!”

That – what – Jiraiya was fighting the Sanbi? “Dismiss summons. Shinobi!” He barked through the dispersing smoke of Buntas disappearance. “To me!”

Kakashi and Itachi appeared in front of him. “New orders?”

“Kakashi, get me Tenzo. Itachi, grab on.” He hiraishined away the moment they obeyed, left Itachi in the Uchiha district, flashed to Shikaku to get Jiraiya’s blood, flashed to Ibiki hoping he’d found some of Tsunade’s – he hadn’t, and they’d raided all the likely rooms – then jumped to Hanzo’s sickroom again. “Shisui, with me.”

Shisui obeyed, despite the conflict with his prior orders, and Minato dropped him in the Uchiha compound with Itachi. “I need you both geared for an S-rank assault mission, extreme water jutsu expected, be ready to match against hostile sharingan genjutsu. You have five minutes.”

“Yes sir.” “Understood.”

Minato jumped eight more times, visiting all his secret hideouts that were still serviceable and stashed with old supplies, including his old incognito ANBU disguise, before he was back in the training ground.

“Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!” With all the other clones running around the village and beyond, Minato had more than exceeded the total number he’d been willing to risk before his death, but he still felt no strain. “You, make a blood jutsu-shiki. You, try the blood summoning again.”

He had four more minutes until he had to retrieve his Uchiha ninja.

Minato sat down cross-legged, closed his eyes, and reached for the power of nature. He’d barely begun to dabble in sage mode before his death, but now it came so much easier and faster that he both could and couldn’t believe he’d left it by the wayside before. Already he could sense the whole village and well beyond it, such was the absurd power of the First Hokage.

Masanari Hanzo had taken many liberties with his DNA sample when he built him this body, sparing no expense to himself. Ceramic carbide ossification, cell walls reinforced with carbon nanotubes, the ability to switch between the best eyesights in the animal kingdom, the hearing acuity of a great wax moth, the jewel beetle's ability to sense fire, the cat's ability to sense motion and air currents through hair filaments, even predict the weather based on static, redundant nervous system, redundant circulatory system, greater stature to accommodate them, and a bigger thoracic cavity to allow bigger lungs, which in turn sustained higher blood oxygenation levels necessary for increased physical and cognitive function, optimized axon and synapse action potentials, many, many things besides….

All of it somehow optimised to work together as well or better than Minato’s old body, and at the same time on less biomass and energy than before, so that he could function at normal or below human capacity if required. Because while the ‘anami cell souls’ had proven intrinsically tied to Hanzo’s existence, and Minato would not be able to cultivate his own from blanks – because he needed to keep his chakra system or risk ground zero Kurama detonation – Minato was ‘forced’ to ‘resign himself’ to ‘merely’ ‘settle’ for Hashirama cells.

His clone trying to summon Jiraiya burst from chakra overuse, despite having many times as much as Minato’s total before his death. Deeper in Konoha, Kakashi retrieved Tenzo and the two turned towards his location. In the Uchiha compound, Shisui and Itachi had reconvened.

Minato flashed to the last two and brought them back with him, just as his clone finished writing the Hiraishin formula in Jiraiya’s blood. “Wait here.” Minato put on his black cloak and Seagull ANBU mask, created a sage mode clone, sat back down and tuned back into nature’s aura. “Clone,” he said entirely for the listeners’ sake. “Scouting mission, prioritise battlefield intelligence over rescue, execute.”

His shadow clone flickered onto the large seal scroll it had spent the last while writing, activated the array and was instantly transported far and away. When new memories didn’t immediately come, even from a clone of a clone created only for that purpose, Minato knew the distance was well beyond the maximum range of Shadow Clone memory transfer. Even so, he continued to wait.

Masanari Hanzo was wrong about a lot of things – the value of shinobi, moral and not, the importance of people versus importance placed on people, on ninja, on him, the importance he placed on them or himself compared to everyone else, his enemies, allies, friends, Konoha, the whole world.

He was wrong to resume his de-escalation attempts as well, after winning his first battle. Hanzo could have neutralized the enemy, Obito could only stay intangible for approximately five minutes and could not use Kamui for teleportation at the same time. In the brief moment between when he solidified and when he teleported, Obito was vulnerable. Had Hanzo looped his chains through all his intangible body parts a few more times, had he used a different layout for the adamantine chains, if he’d trusted in offense just a little bit more than containment, the end would have been very different.

Unfortunately, Masanari Hanzo did not think enough like a ninja. His attempt at reverse psychology failed him, his hope that Obito would rethink his life betrayed him, Obito just ate the damage with his plant side and made a very brief tactical retreat instead. Minato didn’t hold it against him, not when he would have tried to reason with his student as well, not when he wanted to do so even now, but it was still a mistake.

Most important to here and now, Hanzo didn’t understand ninjutsu as well as he thought. He was completely wrong about there being a ‘keep adding chakra until it works’ space-time jutsu in the forbidden scroll. Or anywhere else. After a certain range, not even the best sensors could feel where their chakra went, and they certainly couldn’t control it. The failure of Minato’s clone to reach – or retrieve – Jiraiya that way wasn’t his first failure. It was failure 106 of 106 attempts in the last half hour and counting, each done with a different person under different circumstances by his shadow clones scattering all over Fire Country and beyond.

Whatever power Hanzo had stumbled upon that let him teleport to people, it was either a property of his special chakra, or whatever epiphany he’d achieved while dead.

Fortunately, the underlying principle of Hanzo’s technique wasn’t itself incorrect. In fact, blood had been an essential component in the precursor to Minato’s final version of the Hiraishin. Which his ANBU clone had just used. Minato shouldn’t need it, he’d tagged everyone important with his jutsu-shiki while alive. But for reasons he didn’t have time to speculate on, both Jiraiya and Tsunade had somehow removed it.

He'd tried to reach Obito’s too, to even less luck. He had a clone constantly trying just that, to no response. Either he’d also removed it, or he wasn’t in this dimension. If not both.

The ANBU clone’s memories finally reached him then, because his own theory that shadow clone memory transfer might be able to piggyback sage awareness was apparently correct.

The clone had been destroyed almost immediately. By water pressure.

Minato opened his eyes and created a new clone. “Stand in for me.” He then flickered to stand on top of the large scroll himself. “Itachi, Shisui, stand by.”

Time distended around him, no differently than during the Hyuuga’s highest-level Eight Trigrams space-time taijutsu. This was the first and most crucial element of the Flying Thunder God space-time technique. The second was the ability to zero in on his target, which ideally was the jutsu formula already in place at the other end.

His clone had used Jirayia’s blood, and died. But it had also taken along one of his three-pronged kunai.

Minato appeared on the other side with a second kunai already wreathed in wind.

Sage Art: Harbour Master’s Magnificent Ocean Tides Shearing Wind Slicing Sea Subdivider

The sea split.

The water parted violently, the miles-long trench reached all the way to the shore of Water Country’s capital island, twice over on either sides of the Three-Tailed Giant Turtle that reeled back from a slice on its armored nose. Back and away from the now slashed ball of earth on the ocean floor.

Minato flickered down, punched through the earth shell, ignored Ma and Pa’s genjutsu croaks thanks to newly superior biology, dodged the reflexive backhand of a battered and tired Jiraiya trying to enter sage mode – again – and teleported everyone back to Konoha just as the waters rushed back in.

Jiraiya was discovered, Fourth Mizukage managed to intercept his escape, with considerable help given the bodies floating in the distance and auras on the shore, battle has been going on for some time, Obito responsible? Most likely, coincidence is too convenient.

Minato released the three and flickered away from the flailing bodies to his backup. “Itachi, Shisui, ninshu update now!” Unlike with Hanzo, Itachi had no reservations about opening up to him. “Brace yourselves, we’re jumping in.”

“Ready.” “Roger!”

This time, Hiraishin deposited them in free fall far above the sea, because Minato had let his sea-splitting knife fly free straight up. “Brace!” He threw Itachi up, boosted Shisui the same way with a kick, then kicked off the air with wind manipulation straight for the Three-Tails.

Primary mission already complete, Minato thought grimly. But I can afford a minute to ruin this one scheme.

He landed not on the turtle shell but on water, a thick, dense, rapid-moving layer that prevented direct contact, and was too charged with tailed beast chakra to let him water walk. This defence was why he judged the Three-Tails one of the worst matchups to his skills among the nine, after the Six-Tails’ corrosive sweat and the Four-Tails’ lava secretions. Unfortunately for the creature, he had wind chakra nature and the ability to turn his kicks and punches into hurricanes even without it.

The Sanbi’s water defense blasted apart under the second stage of Rasengan shape transformation, allowing him to latch onto its shell.

Sealing Art: Master Rule Impose Demon Sealing Pact Unmaking Mutuality

The seal Minato used on Obito on that night wouldn’t necessarily work here, since the Sanbi wasn’t a summoned beast, but Minato had long since developed other solutions for scenarios like this.

The script spread across the Sanbi’s form. It was temporary, seals could interfered with each other catastrophically, especially when one of them contained a weapon of mass destruction, but even a moment was enough. The Three-Tailed Giant Turtle flinched as self-awareness returned. It sagged. It squirmed in panic so frantically that Minato was almost thrown loose even as a sage.

But he’d had ample reprieve to prepare, even for an ability he had almost no training in.

The adamantine sealing chains erupted from Minato’s back, far and wide, curled around the Sanbi’s tails, its limbs, trapped it, tied it up until it couldn’t swim. It spat a jet or water, but he was beneath it and out of the way. Shape manipulation curved the water blast to hit him anyway, but lost too much of the force to knock him loose thanks to sage toughness. The beast shook, writhed, roared in distress. Finally, it exhaled all air and tried to use its water manipulation to sink under the surface of the sea.

It failed. The chains could become rigid at need, like poles, even support beams fixed in place.

Itachi landed first, on the lower front edge of the gigantic monster’s inner shell. He managed to latch on with his feet before it could refresh its watery defense. By the time it finally tried, Minato had figured out how to use the chains to suppress its powers. Itachi managed to meet the Sanbi’s eyes with his Mangekyou Sharingan, and the creature froze.

“Tsukuyomi.”

Young Itachi’s report on this technique was even more frightful than what Hanzo had conveyed to Minato during his revival, but Itachi didn’t use it that way because he was a good ninja who followed orders. Minato had told him to choose duration over function, he didn’t want the Three-Tails catatonic and traumatised into hating mankind forever, he wanted to give it time enough to calm down. And explanations.

When Itachi released it from his technique, Isobu looked around in disbelief, then realisation, then a relief so powerful Minato could practically taste it, before its form lost cohesion and drew inwards in a rush of salt water and foam.

Karatachi Yagura had barely enough time to vainly struggle against Minato’s contracting chains, when Shisui appeared in front of him on the waves and captured his attention with his sharingan.

“Hitorigami!”

Kotoamatsukami was not a technique Shisui could use often, certainly not the next day. Fortunately, the permanent long-term memory alteration was merely the apex power of one eye. Also, both it and the repeatable short-term memory version could be adapted towards the inverse application.

“Genjutsu undone,” Shisui grunted, voice raw as his eye bled red through his fingers. “I’ve got him reliving his life, without the impaired judgment from Obito’s constant manipulations.”

Minato caught the now unconscious Fourth Mizukage, flickered to shore to leave him somewhere he wouldn’t drown, then teleported himself and the others back home before what remained of the local backup could react.

Much as he’d love to capitalize on this foreign policy victory, Konoha’s domestic affairs took priority.

“-. .-“

He caught up with Jiraiya as best he could, but he couldn’t justify more personal time than strictly necessary while the crisis continued. He left a clone to bring his old teacher up to speed, and two more to oversee Kakashi’s practice and learn wood release from Tenzo, while Minato finalized preparations for the true mission.

He found that Naruto hadn’t woken up when he returned to Hanzo’s sickroom, so he just dropped Shisui off, checked that the room’s air was as good and charged with the strongest energies as Enma said he’d keep it – the room had no doors or windows – then teleported to the unremarkable patch of forest a hundred meters above, where Hyuuga Hiashi had interpreted ‘station your best sentry’ as being there himself.

“Any changes?”

“None, Lord Fourth,” said the Hyuuga Clan head. “He hasn’t even twitched. His protection field is alive and active, but that is pure inference based on Uchiha Shisui’s periodic handsign reports. If Masanari does have your area denial technique active even while comatose, I cannot say. The byakugan is as blind to his powers as ever.”

Minato would have left it at that, but he wasn’t one to overlook the inner conflict of his shinobi. “And what of your own concerns?”

“… It will sound callous, but I am… not glad but relieved. Not that he is unwell, but rather to see that he does have a limit.” Hiashi grimaced. “Perhaps it is cowardly of me, but I should not like to imagine a world where anyone can achieve such things as he has without repercussions. Even our closest allies.”

To bring Minato back without a living sacrifice, Hanzo had needed to build a new body wholesale. Which needed him to activate all his mental and physical resources, essentially doing what he said he needed to never do again for at least two years. His Yin had been ripping and tearing even before the Uzumaki-bound Shinigami tried to slay him. The only reason the medics and Yamanaka nin hadn’t judged him beyond saving was because they couldn’t take accurate brain readings.

Minato was glad he remembered everything his clone inside Naruto’s seal did, because all his interactions with Masanari Hanzo boiled down to the man wheezing “Fix This!” before he closed his eyes and didn’t open them again.

Granted, it hadn’t been that long, but Minato was sure this wasn’t going to be any mere nap.

On a whim, he teleported to the tri-kunai one of his clones had left near the site of Hanzo’s battle with Orochimaru. The Fourth Hokage had to take a few moments just to stare at the massive structure. Not only was it the largest wooden statue ever created since Senju Hashirama, but it might also be a full transcription of reality’s code as rendered in hand seals. Minato was torn between petitioning the Daimyo to turn it into a national monument, and destroying it right now to deny others the possible knowledge.

Also to prevent the rumors about the First’s return from spiralling even more out of control.

He flickered to the upturned palms where Hiashi had reported the vision. A big purple man and a golden multi-armed demon. A stark contrast from the normal looking men Minato had glimpsed in Hanzo’s brief and hasty ninshu info dump, before he fell into his coma. 

Minato teleported to his hideout, the last one he’d used before his death, where Kushina had last been and which had never been discovered by any allies or enemies. He gave himself a few moments to take in their wedding picture. Then he took off his ANBU disguise, regretfully left aside his old clothes that no longer fit, and pulled on his flaming coat that still did.

From today on, the Fourth Hokage lived again.

He picked up the large scroll with Hanzo’s ‘special delivery’ for Hiruzen, which Minato could bypass the security on and snoop though. Once again, he decided against it for now. Perhaps it would prove a mistake, but the man had prepared it months ago and only told Shisui about it ‘in case anything happened to him.’ The odds of it carrying any actionable information were small enough that Minato was willing to allow himself a little sentimentality.

“Mokuton Bunshin no Jutsu.”

Wood clones weren’t the simplest technique, but Minato had certain advantages that Tenzo lacked. His shadow clone had successfully comprehended it almost five minutes ago, even if it couldn’t be cast without base cells.

It took several minutes and two dozen failures, but eventually a wood clone grew out of his side, holding an identical copy of the scroll. Minato hung the large copy behind his back and flashed to Shikaku to hand him the original just in case, because he was serious about allowing himself only a little sentimentality.

By now he’d decided on a course of action, so he teleported back to Hanzo’s saferoom, intending to pick up Shisui and Enma for deployment.

His plan had to be put on hold, though, because Naruto was awake now.

Minato did his best to hold and comfort his son, now that he was finally beginning to realize that his father’s return wasn’t without cost. As grateful as Minato was for Hanzo’s care of Naruto, he was also conflicted about how blunt the man always was, and especially had been in the talk that preceded it. On the one hand, if Hanzo hadn’t explained to Naruto just why the villagers really shunned him, Minato might not have figured it out either, yet, and he’d hate Konoha a little himself too. It was beneath his intelligence, but Minato never claimed to be entirely rational where his family was concerned.

On the other hand, when Hanzo asked Naruto to choose between having a dad and everything he’d had before, he was completely honest about that too. He was saying that the two were mutually exclusive, and he had meant it literally. Naruto was beginning to realize that now, and he wasn’t taking it well at all.

Then it dawned on Naruto that he’d practically forgotten all about his ‘uncle’ in the excitement of having his dad back, which overcame his resolve not to be a crybaby anymore.

“Why?” Naruto finally blubbered when he exhausted his latest ‘this is just the worst’ ramble. “Why isn’t he getting better?”

Minato wanted to point out it hadn’t been all that long, but he didn’t want to lie to Naruto either. He couldn’t afford to do a worse job than a literal stranger, not if he wanted to call himself a father. “Consciousness – it takes a lot of energy, Naruto. That’s why the older you get, the slower you get. You walk slower, think slower, start to lose track of time, can’t pay attention as well, you feel like time moves too fast or too slow, you can even start to fall asleep at odd times. What Hanzo did – it basically sped that up a lot for him. He needs a lot of rest now.” And he might not be the same when he wakes up-

“But how much? It’s still too early for a good night’s sleep, and it’s been hours! You either sleep less than forty minutes or more than eight hours to be healthy and strong, uncle says so! Except that eight hours is, like, just two for him, and it’s already been longer than that! And he doesn’t move, he doesn’t turn, he almost doesn’t breathe, he doesn’t even scowl when I poke him in the nose, he’s dying!”

“Not reacting to all these loud noises either,” Minato dryly said to immediate regret, dammit, Kushina would have been so much better at this! “Well – I mean-“

“I knew it, he’s dying! He’s dying, he’s dying, he’s dying, there’s gotta be stuff you can do!”

“He’s not-“

“But he is!”

“Naruto-“

“He is, don’t lie to me, I can tell!”

It took longer to calm Naruto down than it had taken to re-invent the Hiraishin, find Jiariya, and fight the Fourth Mizukage combined, including all of the aftermath.

Finally, finally, Naruto settled into softer sniffles, which allowed Minato to put him back to sleep with a subtle nerve pinch. Hopefully his son would think he cried himself to sleep again, or if he didn’t he’d not hold it against him too much.

“Shisui,” Minato murmured as he tucked Naruto back in his own bed. “I’ll be needing you again for a while, despite Shikaku’s prior assignment.”

“I’m at your disposal, Lord Hokage.”

“Lord Enma,” Minato turned to where the Monkey King had neither stirred nor twitched out of his meditation the whole time. “I would have your help as well.”

The Monkey king opened one golden eye. “All risks are, of course, yours to weigh.”

“They have been,” Minato said and he held out his arm.

Enma rose and took it. Shisui did the same right after.

He flashed them back to training ground 22, brought Hiashi as well after having him assign a replacement for himself, dropped off ANBU to stand guard over Hanzo in Shisui’s stead, checked that Jiraiya, Shikaku, Tenzo, Itachi and Kakashi were also all present, raised a sound-trapping barrier around everyone gathered, and laid out his plan.

It wasn't the plan he wanted. He had Jiraiya, but they didn’t have any more actionable intelligence than they started with. They didn’t have Tsunade, who was the only medic whose ability Minato felt confident enough in to also treat as a combatant. His vague hope that his clones might have found her through sage awareness during their dispersal through Fire Country hadn’t paid off, not in the time he was willing to wait.

He’d had to bring in Doctor Hirano to do the eye transplants he would have had Tsunade do as well.

Against all hopes, Kakashi had neither the chakra nor the intuitive Uchiha understanding for how to use his sharingan eye. It was extremely fortunate that Hanzo had pre-empted the massacre of the Uchiha bloodline, because otherwise Minato wouldn’t have the logical alternative on hand.

“I am done, Lord Fourth,” Doctor Hirano said with remarkable aplomb, considering she’d only just found out Minato was back among the living. “Both transplants were a success.”

“Report.”

“No differences that I can feel,” Kakashi grunted, robbing beneath his eye. “Shisui?”

“I have it,” said the shinobi with the longest experience wielding a Mangekyou Sharingan, eyes closed in concentration. “It’s a taxing jutsu, but most of it goes into the gravitational pull and keeping the portal open. Even then, it’s less strain than my Kotoamatsukami. With your permission, Lord Fourth, I can still add my other skills to the mission.”

“Denied, I need you here to open the door back out, or send backup if we go missing as well, Shikaku has the lead in my absence as normal. How many times do you think you can do this, and how long to recharge?”

“No cooldown for the ability, it’s all down to chakra capacity. After recent expenditures, I can use it once now and will have to wait until tomorrow. After that, three uses per twelve hours, provided I don’t do anything else, my chakra capacity has never been the highest I’m afraid, Commander Hatake still has me more than beat there. A soldier pill regimen will allow double that though.”

“That will be up to Commander Nara.”

“Understood.”

“Alright. Jiraiya-sensei, take Lord Enma, Hiashi, Tenzo and my wood clone with you. With my Hiraishin, you should be able to get to your destination in one, ideally no more than two hours despite the long distance. Please hurry, we-“

“Just wait a fucking minute!”

Everything came to a stop at Jiraiya’s outburst.

“Stop. Just stop, I – you can’t just – I can’t – you can’t expect me to just-“ Jiariya-sensei couldn’t find words for what he wanted to say. He made several more false starts, covered his face with a hand in a vain attempt to stem his tears, then stumbled forward with stained cheeks and hugged Minato like he couldn’t believe he was real.

Minato… Minato decided to allow himself this small bit of extra sentimentality, if only because he knew other people needed it more than him. Jiariya-sensei needed it more than him. He couldn’t ignore that, even now, here. Not if he expected anyone to return the favour when it was about Naruto or Kushina. Even if it made him slow and prone to hesitate if he dared let his own feelings loose.

Finally, Jiraiya-sensei managed to draw away, but he didn’t seem willing or even capable of completely letting go. Or do anything else. Anything at all.

“… Jiariya-sensei,” Minato held out a fist. “Do you think you can be completely open with me for a moment?”

The other man didn’t understand, but he sniffled wetly and bumped fists.

The many changes that came over his face were breathtaking. Like only Shisui and Itachi had managed with Minato till then, Jiraiya, too, proved capable of being completely open with him. Unlike Shikaku, whose recent experience with Hanzo had left him subconsciously unwilling to open himself that way again. In this, at least, the universe decided to be kind to Minato without more attached strings.

Finally, Jiraiya smiled wetly and pulled away. “I-we’ll have a long talk about this – about everything!”

“When this is over.”

The older man wiped his tears. “Then let’s finish this fast.”

Despite himself, Jiraiya-sensei was able to take lead on the mission Minato gave him, and left Konoha with his team full speed.

“Itachi, Kakashi and Doctor Hirano, you have one hour to be kitted out for an S-Rank extraction mission, with heavy assault as secondary objectives. Doctor, you will be avoiding combat if at all possible and will have my wood clone for protection. Any questions?”

All answers were negative.

“Make sure everything on these lists is included. Go.”

They went. Minato returned Shisui to Hanzo’s room for the duration, and spent the hour practicing his wood release techniques. In between, he coordinated with Shikaku and the shinobi that didn’t take Minato’s revival at his word, while his clones refreshed his other jutsu.

Finally, it was time.

“I trust you’re all equipped and kitted as discussed?”

“Indeed.” “Sir.” “Yes, Lord Fourth.”

“Shikaku, I leave things here to you.”

“Understood, Lord Hokage.”

“Shisui, now.”

Uchiha Shisui opened and activated his new eye, shaped into the figure of a windmill.

A dark, fathomless portal burst into being in the middle of the clearing, an empty colourless hole in space.

“Be quick,” Shisui grunted. “It’s taking all I have to keep it from sucking everything in at this size.”

“Let’s go!”

In a single bound, Minato and his team were on the other side.

The portal closed behind them, leaving them alone with nothing but silence and stillness to surround them. No one and nothing was in sight. Not the slightest shape of a person, not a creature or plant, not the faintest breeze, not even a sound. Just an innumerable amount of randomly arranged and differently sized rectangular prisms, amongst a dark and seemingly endless void.

“I was afraid of this,” Minato murmured. Since Hiruzen had been taken so close to Konoha, he’d hoped he’d still be within easily reaching distance, but that no longer seemed to be the case. Minato hoped this was just a quirk of the place, instead of the other possibility which was that Obito had reality warping powers here, or something similarly ludicrous.

He mentally searched for the jutsu-shiki on Obito, but felt an odd interference he never experience before, or perhaps a gap – like a connection that should exist… didn’t? Couldn’t? Yet, or at the moment? Or perhaps it was more related to space than time, like it only formed half-way, or only half of it was on this side, Minato had no frame of reference for the feeling. This was nowhere within expectations.

Checking his compass, he found the needle spinning aimlessly. This was within expectations, they weren’t within Earth’s magnetic field anymore.

But for Obito’s ability to function as intuitively as it did, Kamui’s dimension had to have at least directional consistency with the outside world.

Based on their vector of insertion, North-North-Northeast would be…

That way. “Kage Bunshin no Jutsu.” Four identical solid clones appeared around him and dashed in all four directions in a square. “Stay alert and on guard, manji formation.” The Fourth Hokage sat down and reached for the power of nature, or whatever the equivalent was in this place. “Seems this will take a bit more work than I had hoped.”

As he had feared, he’d taken too long to get here.

It was on the fifth generation of sage clones that he finally caught something at the edge of his range.

Time elapsed from the start of his second life: 2 hours and 42 minutes.

Terrible time-to-objective, he needed serious retraining.

Fire Doesn't Cast Shadow

Chapter 21 for 'Understanding Does Not Presage Peace' is ready, but I'm going to leave it overnight to sleep on it, in case I get a sudden brainwave or realize I did or overlooked something stupid. Believe it or not, it happens almost every time.

In the meantime, this is something I wrote in a couple of rapid-fire bursts last month, while getting myself into the mindset of the latest POV character. I tried to be clever about it and not mention his name until the very end, but I doubt people will have a difficult time guessing who it is, even without the context from the last chapter.

----------------------------------------------------

Fire Doesn’t Cast Shadow

Prologue

“-. January 25, 2010 .-“

When it became clear that putting an end to the Ootsutsuki threat was going to be the longest-term sort of affair – if only because the tree demons had sealed off their own dimensions from easy counter-access – everyone who mattered back home agreed to make it a permanent strategic tradition above and beyond all other concerns. Thanks to the Summoning Techniques, Sage Powers, the Rinnegan, and especially the Impure World Resurrection, it became possible to coordinate with even the departed.

The logical conclusion of this was to learn how to navigate the Sea of Samsara, the Wheel of Death and Rebirth itself. Good news, the might of the Ootsutsuki didn’t extend to controlling all of the afterlife. Better news, he figured out how to embed triggers for past life regression into his own soul, so that he might recover his prior life’s memories at a pre-determined level of Yin maturity. Best news yet, he discovered the reason the Ootsutsuki didn’t follow up on their failure in his home dimension – they were busy fighting a completely different interdimensional war.

After some debate, it was agreed that he would become the first to re-join the wheel of rebirth in another dimension. Specifically, on the far side of the ten thousandth’ dimension he floated through, the first sealed one since his own that was inhabited by more than 99% human souls. He did so on the assumption – neither confirmed nor denied by communion with the recently deceased natives – that he was entering a world, a universe, maybe even a whole cluster of dimensions of potential allies against their common enemy.

Instead, he woke up in Brockton Bay.

Well, the story was slightly more complex. He was reborn in Japan, but his parents fled to the USA after Leviathan sank Kyushu, only to be killed within the month by Empire Eighty-Eight gangmen who took offense at his hair and eyes.

After a hospital stay, he was put in foster care with a different pair of parents, who lasted a bit longer up until they were also murdered just two months ago, this time by Azn Bad Boys who deemed them Empire Eighty-Eight sympathizers.

After a second, longer hospital stay that left him lame in one leg, 20% short on lung capacity, and with 8,000 dollars in medical debt, he was caught up in the Chorus gang attack on the Hillside Mall.

The one silver lining, upon waking up in the hospital for the third time in this life, was that the attack had caused a fellow victim to trigger with healing powers, which she’d used to heal him and everyone else she could in the aftermath. Of his newest and oldest injuries. It was a charged set of circumstances to finally remember, but that was surely owed to being clinically dead for a few minutes before Panacea got to him.

He dutifully listened and correctly replied to the doctors and nurses. He dutifully listened and correctly replied to the child services too. Even though they were only going through the motions because he would be ageing out in just a few weeks. He went through all the right motions and said all the right things up until he was finally left alone.

He spent his third hospital stay planning. He mentally catalogued his present assets. He mentally catalogued his home assets. He checked the calendar. He smiled wryly at the irony.

It was his date of birth in his prior life.

“-. January 26, 2010 .-“

Assets: physique of an average young adult man (no parahuman powers, no chakra system), two-bedroom apartment (bills due in two weeks, rent in three), one flip phone (foster father’s), one smartphone (foster mother’s), $950 dollars cash (can of savings hidden inside couch), curated access to state propaganda (TV set in the kitchen), unfettered access to the total digitized sum of human knowledge (smartphone broadband, paid monthly), memories of living long enough to become the greatest shinobi of his time.

Goals: gather information, develop long-term objectives.

“-. January 28, 2010 .-“

Similarities to his old world: size of planet, ancient Japan culture, present Japan writing, 50% of technology, the Cycle of Hatred, the Endbringers were the local tailed beasts but probably not misunderstood, and only the actions of the people with power mattered.

Dissimilarities: everything else.

New goals: gather more information, secure livelihood, (re)acquire power.

“-. February 4, 2010 .-“

Lacking a chakra pathway system was an unfortunate but entirely foreseen inconvenience, practically inevitable outside the Ootsutsuki sphere of influence.

Conversely, the oldest of the Great Beast clans back home predated Kaguya and the Shinju entirely, and so did their techniques. Techniques which could and had been taught to – and by – humans. Naturally, that meant that at least some techniques didn’t need the chakra pathway system, because they didn’t need chakra. Instead, they directly used Yang, Yin, or combinations of both. Higher still were the sage powers, and there, too, senjutsu had been preceded by senriki.

Similarly, many of the highest-level shinobi techniques didn’t use chakra either, but instead Yin and Yang energies transformed back from chakra, either alone or in various combinations, and never to 100% purity. It that context, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say shinobi sacrificed vertical power scalability, in favor of rapid acquisition at lower levels and ease of use.

For most in his situation, all this knowledge would be doomed to remain theoretical, and thus useless. This was also within predictions, it was assumed that transmigrants would prioritize local skills and abilities in any case, on the basis that the locals had to be doing something right to hold off the tree demons.

But fuuinjutsu worked as well with fresh blood, and ofuda were commonly used in various fields, including medical, torture, interrogation, and various forms of training. Both to reduce and to enhance one’s sensitivity to the various energy transformations.

It took little time to create seals that enhanced his sensitivity to Yin and Yang. It took longer to tweak the script until he truly felt his own Yin and Yang energies as deeply and seamlessly as he did his chakra back in his last life. Not surprisingly, the fuuinjutsu from back home had certain blind spots when trying to work exclusively chakra-free.

What was surprising was that he didn’t need to create the missing parts from first principles. Instead, the internet filled in the gaps and then some. Not only did seal script exist in this world as tensho, but it was just one of five forms of Japanese calligraphy, the others being reisho, kaisho, gyōsho and sōsho. These didn’t include the even older Chinese calligraphy, which he’d be going over with a fine-toothed comb as well.

The final seal covered the floor, walls and much of the ceiling of his living room, which took more blood than he could afford to extract in a single sitting. Nothing a pre-drawn pack in a storage tag couldn’t solve.

Finally, he was ready.

“Fuuin!”

The writing flared yellow, detached from the surfaces it was written on, and flowed inward as if pulled by a string, each line coming together and superseding each other.

The sudden extrasensory feedback was beyond disorienting, and the abrupt expansion of consciousness outright euphoric. It was minutes before he was able to tune back to his physical surroundings, and hours before he was willing to.

Eventually, he was lulled back out of his trance by two sore sensation on his forehead.

He went to the bathroom to examine the results in the mirror.

卐卍

The ancient symbols of the Sun and the Night were mirrored on his forehead right above the inner eyebrow of each eye.

“Well,” he told himself. “That’s not going to work at all.”

If he was a trouble magnet before, it was nothing compared to what this would do to him the moment he stepped out of his apartment.

The seal was meant to be temporary, just until he increased his energies enough that they were too abundant not to feel. Because of that, he’d anchored it into his skin instead of anything deeper – never mind his very spirit which he couldn’t even perceive yet – to be able to remove it later. Seals interfered with each other, especially as complexity increased.

For that same reason, however, it wasn’t the sort that could just fade from sight. The position flanking the Third Eye was also important to its function, so he couldn’t put it on the back of his skull, or his spine, or anywhere else more easily concealed.

It had taken him months to be able to feel chakra consistently the first time around, never mind mould it. Even if he went with his most optimistic estimates here, he was still looking at weeks before he achieved even the most basic control. He couldn’t afford to stay shut inside his apartment for that long.

With a disappointed sigh, he undid the seal and wasted all of his week’s work.

He needed a better solution. And some more specific supplies.

He needed something to bite on.

“-. February 16, 2010 .-“

He double-checked the numbing acupuncture, waited for the painkillers to kick in, bit on the leather truncheon, steeled his nerves, and squeezed the cutting pliers.

The top half of his left pinkie toe flew loose with a spray of blood.

“Umfh!” he grunted in pain. Absent of medical jutsu to override physical stimuli, pain was quite dreadful. He had good pain tolerance, but even so his eyes actually teared up, how shameful!

Afte salving and bandaging his foot, he retrieved the toe, carefully peeled off and sealed the skin and flesh away in case he needed them later, cleaned the bone, and then ground it to the finest possible powder. He used first his late foster mother’s mincing machine, then a mortar and pestle he’d bought from a natural remedies shop.

Ready at last, he re-did his sealwork from start to finish, adding the bone dust to the blood he used for the anchor sections of the array. He also expanded the parameters to include specific controls for location.

“FUUIN!”

When it formed this time, the Seal of Sun and Night inscribed itself directly onto his skull, invisible beneath his skin.

“Technique success,” he sighed in satisfaction after basking in his new sensations for another half a day. Experimentally, he tried to tug on the energies or at least influence them somehow, but it was like trying to consciously alter the focus of your eye. As a baby.

Clearly, an adjustment period was ahead of him.

That didn’t mean there weren’t things to do in the meantime though.

He went out, spent a couple of days tracking down the gangers who killed his foster family, stalked them for another three days to determine if they were redeemable – they weren’t – and made sure there was no way to link him to the bodies.

By the time he was finished removing that risk to his identity, he was still getting only the barest response from his Yin energy, and trying to do anything with his Yang merely left him exhausted. Not the worst training but not immediately useful either. He wouldn’t be able to attempt the Academy Three for some time still, never mind anything else.

Fortunately for his first mission, a total transformation wasn’t necessary. The world provided convenient access to everything needed to build more conventional disguises. Among them were fake skin face masks. A bit of fuuinjutsu – mixed in with his recently harvested skin, he’d need to start collecting the dust on the shelves for the future – made it indistinguishable from his real skin, and even copied the pores exactly to permit sweat. 

All else being equal, experience and skill enabled a shinobi to succeed in any given mission.

He was more than equal.

He dyed his hair black, applied his new face, wandered into the West Side of Brockton Bay, and joined the ABB.

“-. April 15, 2010 .-“

The Azn Bad Boys were a disaster constantly unfolding. Taiwanese hated mainland Chinese, mainland Chinese hated the Taiwanese and Vietnamese and Japanese, Koreans hated the Japanese and Mongols, the Mongols hated everyone except the Japanese, the Japanese hated everyone, and everyone hated the Indians.

This wasn’t because everyone belonging to those ethnicities were bad, but because those who weren’t didn’t survive long, especially if they were press-ganged. The high turnover was the driving force behind the gang’s recruitment drive. The leader’s never-ending campaign to control all Asian minorities was both the gang’s lifeline and its poison.

As a ninja, he was always professional on the job. He committed theft, ran protection rackets, peddled contraband, and was kind to the prostitutes when the stress of his cover finally demanded the relief they offered. But he only wore the red and green for as long as it took to finish his intelligence gathering. And he made sure the Empire took all the blame for his cumulative theft of half the ABB’s liquid cash reserves

It would have been useful to get some more in-depth knowledge about the clandestine slave trade as a whole, but that would have turned the mission from short-term to long-term, and it was not worth the potential prize. He faked his death in a fight with the Empire as soon as he gained enough control over his Yin to inscribe seals through touch. He could only do so on other Yin bodies so far, and he couldn’t use them for anything yet, perhaps not ever, but preparation was the mother of success.

He was ‘lost at sea’ having never revealed any powers, or otherwise intimated he was beyond the norm.

He used his spoils to rent a better apartment, order his preferred custom weapons, stock up on sealing supplies, and buy adequate training equipment.

“-. April 16, 2010 .-“

Summary of report, Mission 2010-01: Infiltrate ABB

Lung (Kenta Shimoda) is an attention-seeking egotist whose only redeeming quality has long since been twisted into the greatest detriment to those around him and himself. His weakness is that he can be killed by any conventional means, if you don’t give him the opportunity to acknowledge a threat. Recommended strategy: ambush while idle, behead.

Oni Lee is a soulless abomination. His name disappeared along with his soul back when he ‘teleported’ for the first time. His weakness are his eyes. Recommended strategy: ambush to blind, lethal attack on brain or heart.

Personal details, addresses and other actionable intelligence are attached, alongside information on underlings of note, and contingencies.

“-. April 17, 2010 .-“

He’d known, going in, that he wasn’t going to witness the most august examples of the parahuman sub-species. It was inevitable, the best and brightest this world had to offer would surely be counted among the hidden masters, those responsible for the interdimensional protection of this many-looped Earth. But even so, his first foray into the ‘real’ Earth Bet left him feeling greatly discouraged. To further fuel his frustration, what useful intelligence he collected happened more in spite of his mission than because of it.

Most of the readily available assets offered by this dimension had poisoned strings attached. This world’s mankind had developed more drugs and toxins than existed in his last world. While definitely a shinobi type of weapon, the best and worst of these substances only affected humans, and were therefore useless for his greater goal of interdimensional warfare against tailed tree demons.

Tinker products were admittedly more enticing, but lack of reproducibility meant they would be one-hit surprises at best against the true foes. Certain striker or breaker abilities would serve better, but their users tended to trend insane.

Societally, Earth Bet was an even more extreme example of what not to do. There was a level of nihilism here that would have broken society back home, even before you counted how sinisterly effective the governments had become at self-destruction. And at making the citizenry participate in that self-destruction.

Elections were put-upon theater, economies were being deliberately destroyed by genocidal robber barons, no one could afford to buy a home, schools were indoctrination machinery, universities were debt slave farms, justice was a sham, and coordinated psyops took place every day through every means of broadcast, more insidious than in Shimura Danzo’s wildest nightmares.

All this was before taking into account the Endbringers, whose constant attacks, and their impact on all the aforementioned, guaranteed the world would completely collapse before he even passed his middle years.

Amidst it all, what did the only people with real power do? The few not wallowing in the Birdcage because the vast majority of parahumans were just terrible?

Play cops and robbers.

The ‘Unwritten Rules’ were a disgrace.

It was not because of that practice that he decided not to adopt a parahuman persona for his next mission. Or the one that followed. He had a long-term strategy to adhere to.

But if he were to have entertained the idea, he’d have changed his mind.

He still couldn’t cast most techniques. His learning curve was completely mixed up compared to chakra, he’d not regained any conventional options besides basic genjutsu, and Yin release had not progressed beyond embedding seals on other Yin auras. Also, his Yang energy still grew more from physical conditioning rather than the reverse, his body still wasn’t at its peak despite optimal training and nutrition.

The Academy Three in particular were staying stubbornly out of reach, despite how useful they would be for his next mission.

Illusions had admittedly proved a most effective red tape bypass, but they worked best short term and one-on-one, and he lacked the bloodline traits for the more outstanding options he knew of. Permanent mind alteration he wasn’t willing to use regardless, as he considered them a violation of selfhood. It was why he never pursued mastery in the field to begin with, despite having more than sufficient chakra control and imagination.

Fortunately, the world continued to provide convenient access to everything needed to build more conventional disguises. Among them were fake skin face masks which changed his bone structure. Coupled with his newly un-dyed hair and contact-less eyes, he was ready to give those old accusations about his appearance some substance.

His priority during his ABB infiltration had been intelligence gathering and monetary gain, so his cover had played the required roles. Now, he was ready to pursue insight – and training – in this new world’s own forms of warfare.

He checked his seal work and appearance in the mirror one last time, wandered Downtown, and joined the Empire Eighty-Eight.

“-. June 19, 2010 .-“

Summary of Report, Mission 2010-03: Live Action Training – Firearms

(submitted before Mission Report 2010-02, due to impact on latter’s conclusions)

Guns do not exist on the old world, save some unverified rumors from the Land of Waves that did not last past Gato’s occupation. There are some gun jutsu, but they either need mass casting by entire divisions to be effective in warfare (like the Rock Gun jutsu) or require such chakra control as to be unlearnable (the water gun jutsu).

Both of those have multiple equivalent firearms here that is superior in all ways. The water gun jutsu is beaten by every sniper rifle, the rock gun jutsu is more than matched by cannons and mortars, explosives scale better than blast seals in all ways except portability, and all firearms shoot projectiles faster than anyone has ever thrown a kunai or shuriken.

Key takeaway: bullets travel faster than sound. This means that it doesn’t matter what kind of hearing or reflexes you have. It doesn’t matter how good your hearing or acute your sense of touch, there is nothing to react to because the sound and air disturbance both reach you after the bullet does.

On these grounds, guns are as much a danger to a stationary shinobi as they are to the average civilian. For that same reason, they should work on the Ootsutsuki as well. Even if a target proves too durable or heals too fast, that still is not the failure of the gun as a delivery method, you just needed a different kind of bullet.

Case in point, for every ‘unkillable’ parahuman here on Earth Bet, whether due to invulnerability, regeneration or whatever exotic defense, there is a Tinker gun somewhere that defeats it.

Bombs and cannons are easier to evade, but they make up for it in collateral damage and splash range.

Summation: In their quest to throw the next pebble harder and farther than the one before, the humans of this world have created a weapon that doesn’t need to worry about overcoming a foe, for the simple reason that it overcomes their environment.

Recommendation: Must adjust mainline tactics. ‘Wait to ambush’ still ideal for opening strikes, but ‘stand still and counter’ too dangerous once guns get involved. While malicious intent of parahumans makes their attacks easy to predict even without line of sight (thus vulnerable to preferred ‘goad and counterstrike’ method), the likelihood of firearms being deployed without killing intent adds an unacceptable risk of lethality to self. Will favor ‘always in motion’ approaches moving forward.

Addendum to Mission Report 2010-01: New strategy for Lung: force-feed grenade. Should also work after he ramps up, so long as he does not grow beyond one or two floors height, due to commensurate rise in durability.

“-. .-“

Whenever the time came for a hidden gun to be pointed his way, he hoped it was a hostile foe or even just a hired gun that did it. Then at least there might be some killing intent to sense and react to. Absent teleportation, until he could move as fast as the Raikage (at least), or developed some sort of defense capable of withstanding an average 500-1000 kilograms of force (on every square centimeter of his body), the greatest threat to his life was probably a regular citizen with a gun.

Or a veteran soldier used to pulling the trigger even without actually wanting to kill anyone.

“-. June 20, 2010  .-“

The Empire Eighty-Eight as a faction was a lesson in how to get away with blatant lies. They called themselves an Empire, but operated on exclusion rather than assimilation, ruled less than they destroyed, and might even be subordinate to a broader organization (Gesellschaft). The members were largely opportunists and zealots that espoused values and beliefs not actually espoused by the ones they ostensibly imitated (the National Socialist German Workers' Party). The leader was a man who believed none of what his followers did, only playing the role in order to keep himself the overlord.

As an organization, E88 were the most stable and solvent of all unlawful Brockton Bay entities, thanks to Medhall Corporation, a pharmaceutical company that was not merely a method of money laundering. Kaiser also compensated for the self-defeating nature of E88’s inherent fallacies by casting a wide net in his recruitment. E88 was the only major gang in Brockton Bay that recruited from other places.

As a social movement, the Empire failed as much as they succeeded. This was not because of flaws inherent to their ideology, but due to how their actions opposed it in practice. Notably, they did not let the best of those who embodied ‘the Aryan ideal’ continue unmolested (i.e. doing what enabled them to distinguish themselves in the first place). Nails that stuck out usually got press-ganged or hammered down for defiance. Especially if they triggered with a useful or thematic power.

As a cultural movement, they offended the intelligence of anyone with the decency to study this world’s history. The Nazi party only achieved power in Germany because of persistent foreign meddling in their country’s economic recovery, the German Empire was a meritocracy (such that they won a third of all Nobel prizes), the Germanics were born and bred individualists (and nigh-pathologically honest the farther back you went), the Norman Conquest of Britain sowed the seeds for what would eventually become the global abolition of slavery, and the Vikings matched autonomy and entrepreneurship against old empires rotting alive from rampant vice, and won.

Rather than pay homage to any of these admirable legacies, the E88 instead exalted the most extreme caricature of one of the Nazi’s late-stage slogans.

To add a final insult to injury, they perpetuated the ‘Aryan’ delusion. The irony was thickest here. The Aryans established the single truly unbroken culture in this world’s written history (Hinduism, India), but they only did so through successfully winning the peace with their conquered people.

Religion was consolidated through the marriage of Aseran (Solar) and Vanaran (Lunar) cults. Culture was consolidated through the greatest written epics known to this planet (Ramayana, Mahabharata). The fabric of society was consolidated through comprehensive laws (Manava-Dharma-S'astra). And they even made sure that the ethnic caste system was merely an incidental side-effect of something else actually palatable to the people (family lineage and birthright).

All of this was achieved through consistent and pre-planned policies, stretched over a period many times longer than the Elemental Countries had existed back home at the time of his reincarnation.

In presuming to claim these legacies while embodying their complete opposite, the Empire Eight-Eight could safely be considered, to use a local metaphor, a Trojan Horse. Except this horse was even less self-aware than the wood one.

Incidentally, Kaiser’s father went by Allfather. Considering that Odin was at worst this Earth’s version of the Six Paths Sage (one of either two or three who rebuilt society after the Bronze Age Collapse), and at best one of the Kotoamatsukami (the distinguishing heavenly kami who created both this and his universe), the insult that E88 represented towards all races of mankind grew ever larger.

“-.  .-“

Summary of Report, Mission 2010-02: Infiltrate the E88

Most targets continue to exhibit civilian-level physical capabilities, making standard ambush tactics viable in most cases. Genjutsu also viable on most targets. High-caliber firearms and explosives effective as well. Overwhelming firepower will eventually overcome all damage resistance (except exotic effects and extraordinary circumstances where mentioned).

Absent B-rank techniques or higher, high-yield explosives should be viable in most situations, but are difficult to obtain relative to the norm. Tinkertech laser weapons are guaranteed means of victory, but are difficult to source (without jeopardizing long-term agenda). Unless otherwise stated, Yang self-enhancement will tip the scales sufficiently in own favor even in unfavorable live combat. More specific recommendations below.

Kaiser (Max Anders) – ambush with lethal force on brain or heart, behead if possible. If already armored, stay on the move and pursue suffocation, electrocution, drowning, or the application of explosives strong enough to overcome steel hardness (given sufficient quantity, most options will suffice at point-blank range).

Krieg (James Fliescher) – trap under/inside heavy load and submerge in concrete or water until death by suffocation/drowning. Alternatively, apply contact drugs/poison. Second alternative, electrocution. Chains may not suffice to restrain for long, but would serve as excellent conductors. Absent of dedicated lightning techniques, urban technological level offers easy access to sources of lethal current (power lines, jumper cables). Other battlefield control & overwhelming force options known but currently unavailable.

Hookwolf (Brad Meadows) – electrocution as per above, suffocation/drowning may not work depending on how deep the transformation is. Total submersion concrete trap should, however, prove inescapable without help.

Fenja (Jessica Biermann) / Menja (Nessa Biermann) – if unable to enact standard ambush and kill tactics (depending on how well their Akimichi-type abilities work on reflex), use airborne tranquilizers and/or poison. Alternatively, force-freed explosives.

Crusader (Justin Roth) – close distance and attack with lethal force on brain or heart, behead if possible. If his overlapping clone is acting as defense, a bare hand might pass through (Manton-limit) to break his neck, apply seal, etc. Partial sensory sharing may render him vulnerable to illusion through clones.

Night (Dorothy Schmidt) – priority target, must be neutralized before entering her breaker state. If already in breaker state, retreat and try again when she returns to normal. Effectiveness of genjutsu on breaker state unknown, assume none. Battlefield control & overwhelming force options known but currently unavailable.

Fog (Geoff Schmidt) – priority target, must be neutralized before entering his breaker state. If already in breaker state, avoid physical contact at all costs, retreat and try again when he returns to normal. Effectiveness of genjutsu on breaker state unknown, assume negative. Battlefield control & overwhelming force options known but currently unavailable.

Alabaster (Whitney Bauer) – destroy brain, must be done within maximum 4.3 seconds.

Stormtiger (Ludolf Adelbert) – ambush with lethal force. If already using aerokinesis, employ tricks and misdirections to affect death or capture, either should be possible even at current own level of ability.

Cricket (Melody Jurist) – knife or bullet to the back of the skull. If in combat, use genjutsu to confuse her subsonic sensory ability, then close distance for close combat while her reflexes are impaired.

Rune (Tamara Klein-Herren) – ambush and kill. If already in combat, closing to melee distance or using ranged weapons will be equally effective, deploy as convenient.

Othala (Olga Meier-Herren) – priority target, should preferably be neutralized first. Has no abilities herself but can grant a broad range to others. Observed examples include augmented strength, pyrokinesis, regeneration, flight, super-speed, and invincibility.

Victor (Victor Alric) – ambush and kill. Ranged weapons should suffice in live combat. Alternatively, close distance and engage with Yang self-enhancement, though own martial art skill should be sufficient even without it, provided Othala has not empowered him as she usually does.

“-.  .-“

Victor had been unable to absorb his skills and talents due to his Yin defense. Fortunately, he was able to maneuver the Empire cape into ‘realizing’ he must have unknowingly triggered during the cape fight he used as backstory on joining. He was then able to lean on his newly discovered ‘master resistance power’ to increase his standing in the organization as a secret trump.

Alas, he was outed during a fight with New Wave and Gallant, during which he was struck by – and resisted, though barely – both Glory Girl’s aura and Gallant’s emotional blasts. It wasn’t by choice, but it provided a pretext for Oni Lee to single him out and ‘eliminate’ him with extreme prejudice during a later skirmish with the ABB.

“-. June 21, 2010 .-“

The Academy Three were turning into a very long-term project indeed, as were all the other ninja techniques. Combining Yin and Yang energies in the right portions should be possible, but turning them into chakra – or a working equivalent – had remained a failure. Elemental jutsu had proven similarly elusive so far.

Hand seals did nothing, though he’d still use them for the mnemonic benefits and to give the illusion of a failure point.

Purely Yang-based physical enhancement was intuitive and controllable, but stubbornly refused to become permanent and automatic. He was sure he was missing something, but didn’t know what. Externalized effects remained elusive as well. Shape transformation was actually easier than for chakra, but he’d yet to manage anything visible (never mind palpable beyond some added heat) besides golden glints in his eyes. Experimentation was necessarily slow as well, the quantity and density of Yang remained his most severe limitation.

Yin was producing better results, if mostly because his reincarnation provided him with a considerable boost to the baseline. Spiritual energy was also easier and intuitive to harness compared to the pseudo-Yin of chakra (un)transformation. The result of this was that he did not need seals to cast illusions, nor to combat them or similar effects. Also, unlike Yang, he was developing an inherent automatic resistance to mind-affecting powers, which had not been the case with chakra back home.

When he was subjected to Gallant’s emotion blasts and Glory Girl’s aura, he’d resisted both without having to initiate active countermeasures. Barely, but enough.

In theory, stronger Yang energy should protect his physical body from powers in a similar manner, though he had not gone out of his way to test this for obvious reasons.

If nothing else, it appeared that with Yin not being used up by his chakra system, his spirit could grow and self-actualize more freely. This led to continued expansion of consciousness, as well as gradual improvements to his extrasensory perception. He was beginning to develop the ability to sense the Yin and Yang of others. It was in most ways inferior to his previous tremor sense jutsu, or the echolocation of the Uminos. But it was passive and continuous, and he suspected it would increase in range and become more versatile with time.

Medical techniques were a complete non-starter. Even the purest and most precise Yin transformation did nothing. Other than optimize natural processes perhaps, he hadn’t gotten ill or infected since he began to practice on himself, but that could just as easily be owed to his stronger life force. The only reason he hadn’t completely abandoned the idea was that he looked like his old self, despite not having what this world considered mixed-race parents, so some effect clearly existed.

All in all, he’d achieved minimal progress on regaining his old abilities besides finally achieving peak (unpowered) human potential. Shamefully, he couldn’t even tree walk.

Perhaps he’d find some inspiration during his next mission.

“-. July 10, 2010 .-“

He did not.

“-. July 11, 2010 .-“

Summary of Report, Mission 2010-04: Infiltrate the Merchants

The Archer's Bridge Merchants are a small group of drug dealers with no real aspirations aside from getting rich selling and taking drugs, only using their powers to make their line of work less risky. The small scale of their operations render them a minor issue in the eyes of the local powers, which in turn allows them to subsist on the comparatively less-policed conventional segments of the black market.

This also made longer-term infiltration unnecessary, as they have no deep secrets or pan-national influence or leverage.

Recommended strategies: ambush with lethal force. Melee combat, long-range weaponry, genjutsu, Yang enhancement, overwhelming firepower will all suffice. Specifics below.

Skidmark (Adam Mustain) – ambush and kill. If already in combat, use psychological tactics to distract him, thus breaking his attention and eye contact with his deflector effects. Sustained overwhelming force will eventually overcome his power as well, unless he is given abundant time to layer it over and over again. Such long-term tactics unlikely to be utilized, target has not fully explored his power, his cognition is impaired by lifestyle.

Squealer (Sherrel Bailey) – standard ambush and kill. In combat, separate from her vehicle before using any approach of your choice.

Mush (name unknown, seemingly even to himself) – ambush with high explosives, thermite, or acid in quantities sufficient to destroy whole body at once. Theoretically his changer power is not constantly active, so standard ambush and behead tactics could still work, but not guaranteed.

“-. July 12, 2010 .-“

Parahumans were dangerous, even the most incompetent ones while drugged up to their gills.

Though most were slower and more fragile than an academy student, parahuman powers tended to hit well above their weight class. Conversely, there were those with outsized endurance, damage resistance, or any other number of exotic abilities that improved their survivability or threat. Above and beyond those were true powerhouses, the few who could match the jonin from back home on their best day, all the way up to the Triumvirate who could challenge the kage of his generation.

The greatest generations too, perhaps, in Scion’s case. Depending on how much power he was still hiding.

It was no wonder they needed twelve different power categories here, and fifteen different power type ratings. The E- to S-Class system used in his home dimension was inadequate to properly gauge the threat posed by these individuals.

The silver lining was that there certainly existed a number of abilities that would be useful against the Ootsutsuki, and any other extra-dimensional interlopers.

The big and stormy cloud to that silver lining was that these powers never grew and couldn’t be harnessed, only received somehow from somewhere or something. This occurred almost entirely arbitrarily, independent of any physical or psychological prerequisites, through a process that literally required trauma. There were also a couple of papers circulating websites such as Parahumans Online, about the changes in behaviour not necessarily related to the trauma.

He wanted to keep an open mind. They had something similar back home, the more powerful a ninja was, the more eccentric or sociopathic they tended to be (himself being one of the more fortunate exceptions). But aberrant behaviour was far more common here, almost always extreme, and it was most certainly caused by the powers themselves in many cases, not just trauma. Oni Lee, Scion, the Slaughterhouse Nine, Nilbog, Ash Beast, the many horrors in the Exclusion Zones.

He would never approve shinobi applications for any of the parahumans he’d met so far, and less than a handful of those he read about online.

The worst thing was that some of the powers themselves were the sort that everyone would be better off without. City-wide brainwashing and worldwide event manipulation could not be trusted with anyone. Further tying all that into precognition was a disaster, as the Simurgh literally embodied. And this world even had literal cognitohazards. He himself didn’t know what would happen if he ended up in the vicinity of Mama Mathers. Or, gods forbid, Valefor. As he was right now, he didn’t give himself good odds against even C-rank genjutsu, never mind those creatures.

Above and beyond all that, though, was the reason why he left the Protectorate for last.

Brockton Bay. This city. This damned city that was so obviously a proxy site as to offend his inner shadow mastermind.

Child soldiers doing most of the fighting. Adult supervisors that were always elsewhere or otherwise too busy to help them when a fight broke out. Consistent and always narrow failure by the authorities to contain or eliminate the enemy. The same for all the knock-on effects that resulted. He knew a setup when he saw one, it was like the chuunin exam back home, except it never ended, the citizens were part of the test, and everyone failed. It was to the point where neither incompetence nor malice were enough explanation it on their own, though admittedly the insertion of ‘Coil’ as the hidden hand was a clever misdirection.

He hesitated to assume that everyone was set up to fail, but he’d learned a thing or two about powers these past six months. A concerted effort by the local Protectorate with Triumvirate backup would solve all the city’s worst problems in one day. Same for all other metropolises and most exclusion zones as well.

Also, the powers he learned the least about were the ones that worried him the most: thinkers. Their powers practically tailor-made them for management or leadership roles. But they were not related to the person’s intelligence, never mind wisdom. Further, like Tinkers, they never made it big without resources, leverage and influence. By extension, they never made it anywhere fast without a handout from someone who already possessed those things, in other words the backing of a strong organization.

Long story short, unless he was both luckier than the Shichifukujin and as wise as Omoikane, Coil was a controlled opposition thinker. By extension, he was either in on the greater agenda, or among the ones pulling the strings outright. Both had higher odds than the same being true of the Brockton PRT leader, from what he’d learned and observed. It wasn’t impossible that she was the sort of psychopath that thrived on putting children through unending torment, but if that was the case she was clearly not the person one went to contact.  

In either case, doing anything to Coil directly carried too much of a risk to his ultimate goal, which was to collect goodwill and form an alliance with this world’s hidden masters.

Conversely, there was no getting away from the sad reality that this world was doomed as things stood. Something that said hidden masters had either resigned themselves to, or trusted too much in whatever thinker was leading them onwards.

The solution, at the end of the day, remained the same: upend the status quo enough prove that he could make a real difference. Rinse and repeat until they gave him a seat at the table.

Even without the majority of his abilities, he had almost everything in place to begin. To feel comfortable seeking an in with the public, saner elements of the world’s true leadership. In other words, to finally infiltrate the Protectorate.

The real one, not the obvious fall guys here.

All he was missing was a sustainable and secure base of operations, enough supplies to outfit a sealing division, and an alibi or five.

“-. September 13, 2010 .-“

He didn’t make it to five, but four wasn’t bad.

The first one was a small one-room apartment in Boston, which he got by impersonating the late owner during a genjutsu-assisted change in ownership, after said owner tried to rape the young girl he used an admittedly taxing illusion combination to convincingly pass himself as.

The second was an off-the-grid homestead in Missouri, whose real owner was unlucky enough to go bulk shopping two townships over just in time for the Slaughterhouse Nine to drop by, a month or so past. As he was never identified or even reported missing, slipping into his life was as easy as using another fake face, and genjutsu on a couple of government employees to set up new identification and ‘recover’ his online account for tax payments. Unless something drastically changed, this would likely become his main base of operations. The tree hiding in the forest, as it were. Him, his liquid funds, and eventually the bulk of the guns, bombs, and rockets he’d hidden in eighteen different stashes throughout Brockton Bay City.

The third was in Chicago, in case his first choice fell through. He was able to steal a third identity and negotiate a long-term payment plan for a small condominium, instead of standard rent. The plunder from his infiltration missions wouldn’t last forever, but that was fine, achieving financial solvency was next on the list.

Finally, the fourth was a regular two-room apartment in Manhattan, New York, where he finally sat down and got to work on his grand debut. Which no one would be able to connect to him unless they had the best thinker powers on the planet.

Here, at least, he finally had a breakthrough, in that he figured out how to combine Yin and Yang energies to make sealing-capable ink. Which wasn’t so much combination as it was constructing an imaginary notion with Yin, and then filling it with enough Yang energy to make it real. He still needed blood to provide the template, but now it was just a small drop for every liter of ink, instead of needing to give himself anemia for everything bigger than an explosive tag.

Might this be the answer he was looking for? Could he perhaps apply this paradigm to all his abilities? Yin-Yang release was the apex of power on his old world, was it the complete opposite here?

Unfortunately, it wasn’t something he’d be able to exhaustively test with his Yang still so weak.

Maybe he was just too attached to the familiar. Perhaps the answers lay elsewhere. This world had abundant history and traditions to draw from. Maybe Onmyōdō or Wuxing would work better as foundation for his re-development.

In the meantime, it just so happened that his signature trump card was entirely a fuuinjutsu technique. Even if he couldn’t use it with the impunity of his prior life – for now – he’d tagged everything and everyone he needed. Pre-written and charged seals should substitute adequately in lieu of the equivalent jutsu. He just needed to make enough of them ahead of time.

Constantly using up his energies and blood would completely halt his training, which was frustrating immediately after he finally had his epiphany, but a shinobi’s life was one of sacrifice.

At the very least, he’d make money and reputation from the practice runs. His explosive, storage and barrier seals would provide a hefty source of income once he had his debut as a Rogue, despite the artificial barriers against it.

Equally important, they would hopefully intrigue the local Protectorate through their utility – and ambiguous Tinker/Striker nature – without leading to too much pressure to make him join them. Especially of the unsavory kind. He was optimistic by nature, but he had to be realistic.

The reason for his chosen route wasn’t just to upend the board, but to see what reaction would ensue from a change towards unambiguous good. The obstructionist laws against making income from powers was evidence that parahumans were set up to fail even outside Brockton. If the hidden masters reacted negatively even after he fixed all of their problems, if they were evil…

Well. He’d have no choice but to adjust his aims and strategy accordingly.

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Legend, at least, seemed to be as reasonable as his reputation.

But he wasn’t taking any chances here.

He was taking all his chances somewhere else.

“-. October 10, 2010 .-“

At 9:45 AM, he walked into the New York Protectorate headquarters for his 10 AM appointment with the power testers. Unsurprisingly, he was told to either reschedule or wait.

He decided to wait. Took a seat and joined everyone else in the lobby in watching the news. The news about a sudden and shocking event last night in Borckton Bay that killed all Merchant, ABB and Empire capes.

Despite his distaste at how long it took them to mention the fatalities not parahuman, his reaction was natural, genuine, and perfectly appropriate to the situation.

After all, as a shinobi on a mission, Namikaze Minato was never less than a complete professional.

Tie-Breaker Poll

Ok, it's been a full week for the poll to simmer and there have been no more votes for two or three days, the results are pretty much set. To my utter surprise, it was a perfect tie between 'Everything, Everywhere one thing at a Time" and "The Strategy of Godly Surviving" while "Truth and Reconciliation" got a clear but distant third.

Given that I'm no longer going to be busy with Reset the Universe, this means I can start work immediately, instead of waiting until Understanding is complete.

I'm strongly inclined to use my own vote as a tie-breaker and select Everything Everywhere, because I like that one more and it has no baggage. The fact that GRRM has clearly given up on ever finishing ASOIAF has also also sapped a lot of my enthusiasm.

But that would be kind of a dick move, so I'm gonna put up a tie-breaker poll and cross my fingers.

That said, I'm running a different poll elsewhere on the net, where I get my best traffic on Understanding. To my surprise, it's another neck-and-neck race, this time between "Sons of Sons and Suns" and "Truth and Reconciliation." The winner there will end up replacing Understanding, when the time comes, so you folk on third place needn't abandon all hope just yet. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Dead Weight Notice

After some deep thought, I have decided that I will be dropping Reset the Universe. It's become a chore to write it, and each update feels like a mistake. Also, almost no one is reading it anyway, and I think it's obvious to everyone why - the story has a bunch of unfixable problems.

The MCU has nothing story-worthy happening in this time frame, the people who read the comics or watched X-men aren't reading this fanfic, an old grumpy dad isn't the sort of archetype popular with the lion's share of self insert readerships, I gave Jason the mirror dimension too soon, and it's clear that I've not made him or anyone else particularly engaging. Certainly not enough to make most people stick around.

The opening prologue had amazing response everywhere I posted it, but that was also where the story peaked. Everyone came for Tony Stark, but what followed wasn't enough to make them stay (or me, now).

It would probably have been different if I bit the bullet and just made this a straightforward Tony Time Travel (instead of waiting until he was 18 and got with Pepper as was the plan here). Worse, I tried to write a version where he just goes back himself after finally accepting genuine therapy, but all my remaining interest died half-way through the rewrite of the pilot.

I should've just left it as a standalone one shot.

Thank you to everyone here who left likes on the last two updates, even if they were just out of politeness.

To those few (if any) who would have liked to see it through despite its many issues, I apologize for the disappointment.

Vote on Understanding's Replacement

'Understanding Does Not Presage Peace' will be ending soonest out of all my stories, at this rate of updates, so it's time to decide what to slot in its place when the time comes. As most of you know, I have plenty of stories just waiting for me to get back to them. And as many of you also doubtlessly suspect, I have plot bunnies for new ones always living rent-free in my head.

Current unfinished stories I could see myself picking back up would be these, so follow the links and decide which you'd most like to see continued:

• Everything Everywhere One Thing at a Time (Harry Potter / Stargate Multicross)

• Master of Wood, Water and Hill (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings)

• Sons of Suns and Sands (Star Wars, Obi-Wan Time Travel)

• The Strategy of Godly Surviving (ASOIAF, Brandon Stark SI) - Sequel to This

• On the Shoulders of Scions (Mass Effect, Child Shepard Time Loop Interstellar-Style)

• Self-Made (Baldur's Gate 1&2, Forgotten Realms, Planescape Eventually)

Alternatively, I have enough interest to write one of the following instead

• A new Dragon Age Story - will start in Dragon Age I and will be Dwarf Noble-Centered if chosen. Not only did real-world political activism ruin that part of the late game, but the plot contradicts itself in several major ways just to kiss the ass of the 'good' king choice for the horrendously ill-thought out 'gotcha' epilogue (but that's an essay unto itself). Dwarf Commoner will also be part of main cast, while other wardens might show up but won't have primary roles.

• A 'new' Halo story? - I once tried to run a quest in Halo, called "Truth and Reconciliation'. Its premise was that the games were a simulation on Master Chief by Offensive Bias (Forerunner Super-AI that 'beat' the Flood the first time). Master Chief becomes aware of this through deductive reasoning - and OB's regular memory adjustments ceasing to work - and crashes the whole thing. John promptly wakes up just after his Spartan enhancement surgeries, some months before Harvest, and says 'Fuck the Librarian and the Geas She Rode In On.' I could see myself persuaded to turn this into a proper story.

• Nothing specific - instead of a dedicated story, I could instead just start a series of one-shots or multi-part plot bunnies as they come to me.

Reset the Universe - Chapter 5

Some Patrons have told me that they have trouble reading PDFs on mobile because of font size and formatting problems. I'm going to see what happens if I post PDFs unprotected, and I'm going to paste the chapter raw here in this post box as well.

Please let me know in the comments if this made any difference. If not, the only alternative is searching the Android or Apple store for a different doc reading app with a proper mobile mode.

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Chapter 5 – Envy Is the Stepmother of Progress

“-. Howard Stark .-“

“-etails are still scarce about what precisely transpired at the Stark Munitions Depot in Los Angeles-

He switched channels.

“-that while the Stark Munitions Depot personnel are all present and accounted for, they make up a very small fraction of the people who streamed out of the building after fire broke out this afternoon-

He switched channels again.

“-police have taken into custody people after they emerged from a heretofore unknown location situated right below the Stark Industries warehouse-“

He switched channels again.

“-at least seven of the detainees have tentatively been confirmed to have been reported missing as far back as six years ago. What this means for the rest of the people there, or the clandestine location they emerged from, is still unclear. No Stark Industries official has yet been available for comment-“

He switched channels.

“-no one knows so far what Howard Stark’s level of involvement with these events, if any, might be. The warehouse staff have professed complete ignorance of the matter and refuse to speak with a lawyer or official SI representative present. Notably, the police have not detained them alongside the rest. That said, it seems unlikely that the facility, especially with the size and scope that is now being reported, could truly have existed under the nose of the genius self-made billionaire-”

He switched.

“-now seems as if the crowd that was disgorged by the Stark Munitions Warehouse in Los Angeles might, in fact, be just part of the personnel of a heretofore secret facility located below. Given the attire and behaviour observed of the people detained, this may be just the day shift of an otherwise bigger employment structure. Nothing besides the location yet suggests that this operation is in any way directly connected to the foremost made man of New York. It is also unknown what sort of record-keeping the operation used. We hope that more information will become available once the firefighters have had time to put out the last fires.”

Switch.

“-the fire engulfed the heretofore unknown-about underground levels, which appear to be distinct and newer than the nuclear bunker located nearby, which also seems to have been part of the facility-“

Switch

“-ventilation failed, causing the flames to exhaust the available oxygen and go out almost entirely by themselves, well before they reached or otherwise endangered the munitions being stored in the Stark Industries facility above ground-”

Switch.

“-ccording to preliminary statements by the firefighters, several entrances existed, but all seemed to have jammed or collapsed at the same time, suggesting this was an act of deliberate sabotage. On that note, we still don’t know who tipped off the emergency responders to begin with-“

Ring, ring, ring.

Howard picked up the phone, which hadn’t stopped ringing all evening, put it back down, then picked it back up and dialled headquarters. “Stark here. Yes, Peggy, I do have the TV on – yes I noticed half of them are calling me a mobster, that’s nothing new. What I’m more interested in is why I’m having to find this out from the news! What the hell are our people even doing, if our enemies are building their bases right under us? Yes, I did say I’d deal with corporate games on my own, but this is well beyond that and you know it.”

Howard listened to her reply and pinched his nose.

“You’re saying this fell through the cracks in between SHIELD and that? Mighty big lucky break for them, isn’t it?” Unless they knew exactly where SHIELD wouldn’t be looking. “… I suppose The Los Angeles development and infrastructure authorities aren’t the most corruption-free. Fine, I assume we already have people looking into it? Call me the moment we’ve combed over the underground projects and audit reports for the area. Actually, never mind that, I’m coming down there.”

Howard put down the phone, then picked it back up and formed the number for his PR department. “Amanda. Yes, that’s why I’m calling. Do we have a place for our people to stay, reps, lawyers? Good work, but we’ll have to go Iron Maiden on this one. Set up a way for them to let the rest of us know when someone’s pushing where they shouldn’t, and especially if they’re made to disappear. Also, tell them… ask them, rather, if they get taken, it doesn’t matter by who, police, suits, phonies pretending to be them – yes, I’m afraid this might just be that sort of situation. Ask them to try and keep their mouth shut for two days. It’s the gentlemanly thing to do. It’ll give the rest of their fellows time to run, or us time to extract them, arrange better representation, ramp up security, etc.”

He held his phone to his ear while he got dressed.

“Yes, do the pager, regular check-ins, dead man’s switch, the works. Make it so the alarm also gets set off when any of them go beyond our transceiver range. That’ll make it harder for anyone to disappear our people. Talk to Arnold in R&D, devices should already be in stock precisely for events like this. Yes, I’m serious. I wish I wasn’t, I wish this were all a joke, but it’s not. Now unless there’s anything else-”

There was, in fact, something else.

“… Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Make it groups of three, each person in the group will know a number and place to drop messages to the rest of their group, or several places. They can communicate with other groups by letting each person have a way of contacting one other from a different group. It’ll be slow but hard to trace. Get with legal and make it happen.”

Might be time to get the whole company to do it too, or at least the parts of it involved in the more sensitive projects. It was how SHIELD teams did it. Howard didn’t know what to feel about his company coming up with the same ideas, independently.

If it was really independently.

At the very least, this meant that his ongoing efforts to separate SHIELD from Stark Industries wasn’t bearing as much fruit as he hoped. Any slower and he might not have even this shred of untainted legacy to leave his son when the time came.

God damn the Cold War!

The phone kept ringing and his wife kept answering and politely shutting it in people’s faces while he got ready. He was just leaving when the phone called one last time. He wouldn’t have stopped, but this time his wife called him back.

“Howard,” Maria Stark held out the phone. “It’s the FBI.”

They’d better not try and start a jurisdiction fight with SHIELD over this. “Stark here, to whom am I speaking?”

“Mister Stark, this is Danny Coulson.”

He paused at the name. Danny Coulson was practically the biggest name among US field operatives from all alphabet agencies right now, and in fact SHIELD had been trying to poach him for years. “Coulson. What does the New York Police Assassination, Fugitive, and Bank Robbery Investigations division of the FBI want with me?”

“Not the New York Division, WITSEC.” Say what now? “You might not know, but my Hostage Rescue Team pet project got approved a few months ago.” He did know that because SHIELD knew that. “In preparation for that, I’ve been doing rounds among other units and agencies to gain broader contacts and experience.” That, SHIELD hadn’t known. “It just so happens that one of the witness protection agents very recently went missing. Wanna guess the who, where and why?”

“… Just one question before I do.”

“Shoot.”

“I could just as easily not have picked up the phone, it’s been ringing non-stop for hours. Why not go through the proper channels?”

“With all respect due to Dame Carter, this is an internal US matter and her loyalties will always be to Britain first. Also, multiple citizenship muddles not just the issue of jurisdiction, but outright sovereignty. If I failed to reach you this way, I’d have shown up at your headquarters and refused to speak to anyone but you.”

That was fair enough. Intelligence agencies required agents and contacts everywhere you could find them, but such organisations were the opposite of public for a reason. Howard rather thought that dual citizenship should be forbidden for anyone in congress, at least. “Not the Colonel?”

“While his permissive rule skirting worked out with Captain America, I’m worried that his luck might have turned with this one.”

What’s this? Could he have stumbled upon that rare endangered species that didn’t think Howard was the loose cannon? “… I’m on my way downtown for business, but I can meet you somewhere on the way. Say, 1057 Lexington Ave, Restaurant Orsay in an hour?”

“See you there.” Click.

Howard gave the phone back to Maria and went to get his car. A whistleblower was probably too much to hope for, but it said enough that these people – whoever they were – had the balls to disappear government agents.

The question now, was, was this an old enemy returned, or a new one?

“-. Emma Frost .-“

Regardless of what the contract said, Emma Frost had still been partially certain she was signing her soul away. If only because mind-raping people was practically the next worst thing.

Instead, her employer had hired her to be a hero.

He hadn’t even told her to alter any minds, his wife could apparently brew potions that made people forget about people. Having to worry about someone or something altering her very self was a new and unpleasant sentiment. But Emma grudgingly agreed with Allerdyce that it was only fair, considering that she embodied that very concept for everyone else alive.

It wasn’t just psionics and other mutant abilities turning the world upside down, magic was real as well. What else was real? Other than vampires, apparently. And fathers that swell with personal pride when their child is complimented in their presence, instead of holding them in open contempt no matter how perfect and bright.

Fast forward to now, she was having serious trouble keeping all the new knowledge and skills straight in her head. Mister Quill had more than delivered on her ‘signing bonus’ but she was proving to be less than deserving of it. She hadn’t gone through more than three of the people who were currently lined up unconscious in Mister Quill’s barn, but she was already ready to call it quits.

“Not going well, huh?” the man in question hummed sympathetically from where he was sitting on a hay bale. “This is the first time you try this, you said?”

“Yes,” she grunted, holding her head.

“How are you feeling? Please make the description as accurate as you can.”

“I have the mother of all migraines, I can practically feel the information and experience I just absorbed from miss analyst over there vanish, the field surveillance I just absorbed from mister square-jaw over here is overwriting it.”

“I suppose it’s not so surprising. The brain may store data as quantum wave-form effects, but it’s not the only means long-term. Also, it makes sense that it wouldn’t start out knowing how to best do it, and memory partitioning is a pretty high-level skill from what I know. As a telepath you have a natural advantage there, but…”

“Clearly not enough when trying to absorb so much at once,” Emma sighed, sitting back on her lawn chain in pain and disappointment. “Well, it was a nice idea. Beggars can’t be choosers, I’ll just have to decide which one to keep. Any suggestions?”

“Maybe,” Mister Quill rubbed his beard with a thoughtful look. “Maybe more, maybe less. Why don’t you go inside and have some food, maybe do something to relax for a while. I’m gonna think about this a little and get back to you.”

Emma did her best not to show how conflicted that made her. “Very well, I may as well. Part of being a good guest, yes?”

The man hopped to his feet. “You can even talk to my daughter and swap stories about useless boyfriends.”

“With all due respect, sir, that is none of your business.”

“Troy Killkelly owes money to a casino and plans to use your telepathy to get out of it.”

What.

“Your restraint about not invading the minds of just anyone does you great credit, it’s a big part of why I hired you,” Quill said as he walked out ahead of her. “Unfortunately, you had rather bad luck with your first boyfriend. Sorry about that.”

What – how did he – when – it couldn’t be…

… But since when was her luck any good?

It certainly doesn’t measure up to these people, she thought sourly as she went inside in search of some coffee.

It was ungrateful of her, but she couldn’t help it. She’d always had a vague jealousy of everyone who didn’t have to live under the tyranny of Winston Frost, but this went well beyond her most imaginative resentment. The way Mister Quill treated his family – and was treated by them in turn – was the sort of thing she secretly wished was a mere fairy tale, anything to make her own injustice feel less outrageous.

But here was a man who’d go on a global crusade against evil to make a literal superpower to gift his son in his hour of need. When said son had done everything wrong.

That the man had made it explicitly part of her contract to never snoop around his family’s heads, and was still on the lookout in case she took liberties with her telepathy anyway, well, that just made her more envious.

“Finished interrogating people?” Meredith Quill – the elder – asked when she entered the kitchen. “Hungry? There’s chicken soup and pot roast still warm if you want it.”

“Yes and yes,” Emma replied. Galling as it was, free food was something she’d learned never to say no to, ever since she ran away. “It was all surprisingly straightforward.” The interrogations had been simple, Mister Quill just put on that face concealing hood, woke people up on by one in the Mirror Dimension, and asked them pointed questions while Emma was behind them. It didn’t matter what kind of composure they had, whenever a familiar name or other detail was mentioned, the mind automatically conjured up the rest for Emma to pick out.

It wasn’t the same as going through long-term memories, but she was finding that an even more complicated issue than skill theft. They’d decided to leave that stress for Ian Quinn, whenever Mister Quill could get him alone.

“I’m glad for that, dear,” Missus Meredith said. “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about.”

Oh no.

The last time the madame came to Emma with food, Emma wound up somehow sharing half her family woes and admitting to having a gay brother. And that he was a drug addict. She’d assumed – correctly – that madame Meredith would already know about it all, since her husband did, but it was still the biggest mistake she’d done since coming here. After all, the contract she signed only bound the signatories, not anyone else.

“I think you should think a bit more about using the one-time restoration my husband agreed to pay you with.”

“I beg your pardon?” Emma felt affronted. “Madam, with respect, that is none of your concern.”

“And my daughter wasn’t her lout’s concern, out son’s strumpet wasn’t our concern when she should’ve been, we were none of hydra’s concern, you weren’t my concern either until you became my guest, but here we all are.” The woman put a hot bowl of food in front of her. “Regardless of extenuating circumstances, your brother resorted to drug abuse on his own. Even if Jason restores him to natural baseline, odds are good he’ll do it again. In which case you will want to contact us again, something you will be unwilling or resentful to do if you perceive yourself as ‘losing’ in our temporary business partnership.”

Emma reminded herself she was here under contract. “Was that all?”

“Conversely, by treating your peace of mind as independent from his wellbeing – or anyone else’s – you will be unable to foist responsibility for the outcome on anyone but yourself. This might make it feel worse for a little while, but will also minimize the risks to all your relationships, personal and business.”

… What did that even mean?

“Or you could talk to your brother in great detail about how expensive a favour it was and extract every possible vow and promise, instead of playing ignorant and hoping he’ll make the right choices this time despite all evidence to the contrary, or something silly like that. Something to think about.”

Emma was not given time to express her offense before the woman left her alone with her food. She broke bread with rather more pique than usual.

The food was delicious. She hoped she could take some to go when she left.

Mister Quill dropped by the kitchen at one point, but he only nodded at her on the way to the refrigerator and back out.

“Your wife is as disconcertingly blunt as yourself,” she said despite herself. “Are all in your family so rude?”

Mister Quill stopped and turned to her with a soft look that made her feel even smaller than before. “The fact you consider straightforward honesty to be such a frightful thing is something I find most sad, Miss Frost. I am sorry for the life that led you to this place.”

Emma wanted to reply, to say something, but she didn’t know what. She just stared at the baby bottle the man was holding. She also started at the empty doorway after he left without another word.

She stared at her food too.

She took another spoonful. It was still too good to abandon, especially when she didn’t know when next she’d have the privilege of a home-cooked meal.

Maybe I should steal some cooking skills and damn everything else, she thought with less irony than she liked. One of them down there must have some.

Once she was finished, she rinsed the bowl and spoon and took to wandering the house. She knew better than to snoop, but she’d been given free access to the bottom floor and the small library on the first floor. Since the den was taken up by the ongoing family reunion, Emma decided to see what her hosts considered worthwhile reading material.

Minutes later, Emma Frost was staring open-mouthed at the Epic Cycle. The complete Epic Cycle that was not supposed to exist. Only the Odyssey and the Illiad were known to have survived, but here she was staring at the full set of eight. This was impossible, they had to be fake, they had to be.

She took them one by one and paged through them. Frustratingly, they were all written in Ancient Greek, but… that just made it more likely that they were the real thing, didn’t it?

If these were authentic, these tomes alone represented more wealth than Winston Frost himself could boast of, and what even were those covers? And the binding…

He never answered my question, the thought suddenly came to her. Same as he never explained to me how he knew about me. Or how he found me.

She only perfunctorily looked through the other shelves in the room, but was glad she did when she found translated copies of all eight books she’d only just finished gawking over. Internally only of course.

She sat down at the window and opened the first one. Immediately she was captivated by the lettering. It was a masculine but flowing cursive done in ink with a stylus, the calligraphy was amazing, was the translation done entirely by hand? Quickly paging through the other books, she found that indeed they were all the same.

Fascinating. Unless it was all a complete forgery. The books weren’t attributed to any of the standard authors, but instead Odysseus of Ithaca and Medea of Colchis. She was pretty sure the latter, at least, had nothing to do with the Trojan War.

Well. There was only one way to determine the truth.

Before she knew it, she’d read the entire Cypria. It was less than half of the Illiad, eleven chapters compared to the latter’s twenty-four, but somehow it still managed to relate all the events leading up to the Trojan War, and the first nine years of the conflict, including the Judgement of Paris.

Poor boy, there was no good answer when all three goddesses were guaranteed to do something horrible to you for being spurned. Emma knew the feeling well, she experienced it with her father and sisters at practically every interaction. Worse, with Aphrodite literally enthralling Paris to her side, not just through her powers but those of the Charites and the Horai on top of it, Paris’ ‘judgment’ wasn’t really his at all.

Emma would have gone right to the next in the series, the Illiad itself even though she’d already read that one at home, but she belatedly realized she wasn’t alone. Mister Quill’s daughter was very light on her feet, and Emma still couldn’t keep a constantly active scan for people around her. Especially when otherwise distracted so thoroughly.

Soon, they were engrossed in a talk about what they believed of the events and the characters, and were the heroes and kings involved really that young?

Naturally, this inevitably devolved into judging and misjudging which of the male characters were the best. But unlike with her sisters, there was no feeling of hidden barbs and sharpened knives being stowed away to hurt her later. The end result was that Emma found herself emphatically arguing with another girl over the merits of a hot boy, or rather the lack of merits.

“And just look, even the text itself agrees with me!” Emma declared while opening the book to the right page with a flourish. “’Of the rage of Achilles’ it says so right here, the whole book isn’t about Achilles, just about his tantrum! The whole war turned on its edge because he was an emotional fool that couldn’t control himself.”

“Not true,” Meredith denied hotly. “He controlled himself just fine up to that point and after, I thought you said you read the Cypria? Then you should know this! The text goes into great detail about their oaths and the rite of Xenia, Agamemnon broke or skirted practically all of them in how he coerced Achilles for his own ends.”

“So it’s not that Achilles couldn’t control himself, he chose not to control himself. You realize that’s even worse? It wouldn’t be so bad if he had literally anything else going for him, he’s literally just a teenager for most of the war, heck, he starts out younger than we are. But if not for the Cypria, the only other thing we’d know about him is that he’s the best fighter!”

“The best fighter, best champion, best duelist, best tactician, best soldiers.”

“But we can’t give him credit for most of that, can we? He’s just one man and the war was past the stage of duels by that time. The war effort relied less on him and more on the Myrmidons, and those were each ten times as strong as a normal man because they were grown by Zeus from ants. Note how it didn’t make a difference that it was Patroclus at their head instead of him.”

“And look how that turned out.”

“Only because the gods kept meddling.”

“The gods’ meddling is just allegory.”

“See, I’d believe that if we weren’t a psionic mutant and a literal witch sitting at the same table.”

“… Witch’s daughter, I don’t know any of that stuff.”

“Yet,” Emma stated with more surety than she was entitled to. “If he gave your brother a superpower overnight, doesn’t it stand to reason he’ll do something similarly ridiculous for you?”

Only when she finished did Emma realize the question wasn’t as rhetorical as she intended.

For better or worse, Meredith the Younger did take it as such. She sat back with a huff and didn’t argue further.

Emma crossed her legs and tried not to look too smug at winning the argument. In absence of the aforementioned hidden barbs and sharpened knives being stowed away to hurt her later, she found it uncommonly easy to be gracious in victory.

… No, she couldn’t let the silence turn awkward because of her own hangups. “How’s your brother?”

“Annoyingly perfect, as always,” Meredith groused. “Brave, kind, smart, earnest, taking responsibility, hasn’t waffled or made excuses even once, he’s the perfect son as he always is, it’s an outrage is what it is.”

Maybe I was wrong about them after all? Emma took her in cautiously. Or at least her? “I know a thing or two about being the perfect child,” she said noncommittally. “Believe me, it’s not what it’s cracked up to be.”

“I know!” Meri slumped with a groan. “I know it’s stupid, Daddy literally just cured me of brain cancer, I’m the last person who should be complaining, but…” She had cancer? Brain cancer?! Wait, he’d cured cancer – Mister Quill could cure cancer?! “Daddy gave Glenn a literal superpower, how can I not be jealous?!”

On second thought, Meredith Quill was actually being perfectly reasonable, Emma sat corrected.

… Why couldn’t her sisters have been more like this?

“Right. Think it’s past time I checked on Peter.” Meredith the Younger got up and side-eyed her. “Wanna meet my baby?”

And here was the wrench in the image of the idyllic nuclear family. This girl already had a baby but couldn’t be more than three years older than Emma, and the father was never more than skirted around. Perhaps Emma was overestimating Quill’s parenting…

But no, she was just being a petty rat, she knew from experience how unlucky someone could be when it came to their family members. Just because her father was the bad guy in their family dynamics didn’t mean the reverse couldn’t be true. She wasn’t going to project her own issues on others, she was better than that. “… Alright. Don’t mind if I do.”

“Just no funny business, Dad says that using too much weirdness around him might activate his powers too son and then we’ll all be in trouble.”

Look at that, another revelation to rock her world, just how much farther until the bottom of the rabbit hole?

Honestly.

Peter Quill turned out to be a supremely normal baby and unremarkable in every way imaginable. It didn’t make her suddenly eager for motherhood, but it also didn’t make Emma’s desired future in teaching seem any more hopeless than before, so that was… something?

She eventually made her escape when Meredith decided it was time to breastfeed.

Emma slowed down near the bottom of the stairs when she heard Mister Quill’s voice come through the now open door, tense, frustrated and resigned.

“-least this time don’t share the important stuff with just anyone. Your deepest fear, your loftiest ambitions, financial status, personal conflicts, acts of kindness, family quarrels, your spiritual journey or personal sacrifices, your inner struggles and moments of pride both, these things are yours.”

“Sounds like a lonely life,” Glenn was heard from inside.

“No. Friendship, marriage, these things need no more logic than betrayal does, and far less insight into the other person. A good relationship needs none of these things, as long as you have fidelity and industriousness and the courage to treat each other kindly and yourselves fairly.”

“I’m joining the military, dad, not a dating hotline.”

“Don’t remind me,” Quill harrumphed. “Incidentally, if the time ever comes where you absorb a weird substance that gives you power over gravity and you start to develop a messiah complex, please, please come to me before you try to turn Chicago into a crater on the way to tearing the planet apart in search of ultimate power, or something silly like that.”

“… That was horribly specific.”

“I’m serious, Glenn. I need a vow right now.”

“Jesus, fine, fine, I promise! Don’t tell me, our family tree includes someone name Cassandra?

“Wrong cursed witch.”

“Dad, I was joking.”

“I’m not.”

Emma did her best to look like she’d only just come down when Mister Quill came not quite storming out of the room.

“Trouble in paradise?” She said because the great telepath still didn’t have complete control of her own mouth.

“And in hell too, might be,” the man harrumphed, lumbering across the hallways to the semi-open dining room across from the den, with Emma following for lack of a better idea. “My oh so courageous son has decided to go through with the WITSEC identity change, even after all this. So now I have to look forward to pretending Glenn Talbot is a complete stranger while he’s getting shot all over the world for the next twenty years, and then maybe, possibly, chasing an enormous green rage monster all over the other half of the world for another twenty years. After the thing with Meri and Peter, and all this other stuff, I might be undergoing a tiny crisis of faith in my fatherhood qualifications.”

“… I’m not the most unbiased person to be lamenting this to, I hope you realise.” Green rage monster, what-?

“I know!” Quill groaned, his manner almost identical to his daughter as he rubbed his face. “But you need the warning in case I start suffering from half-empty nest syndrome. I’m a sucker for sob stories, in case you hadn’t noticed. Granted, yours is pretty generic, but still.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Which is why you should feel feel free to tell me when I’m sticking my nose where it’s not wanted.”

“Believe me,” Emma bit out. “I know very well where my boundaries are.”

Her deflection didn’t work at all. “What, you consider not having the worst luck in life to be offensive? You should be glad, it means the world doesn’t hate you any more than it does anyone else. The world doesn’t care and the world doesn’t owe. Granted, that’s in large part because the gods are all gone or silent in this era, but still.”

Put like that, Emma grudgingly allowed that it was somewhat less infuriating to be told that… her personal drama wasn’t that exceptional in the grand scheme of things. Emma had the best looks, pedigree, powers, and she’d even been blessed with great wealth before she sacrificed it on the altar of youth’s rebellion. Her family might not have given her any love, but that was on them, not the world.

Why couldn’t her father have been more like this man?

She turned away from that thought. “… Gods are real too, then?”

“And thankfully not paying any mind to Earth right now, or at least humanity. Let’s try to keep it that way, hmm?”

She didn’t know what to unpack from that.

“Anyway, come with me.”

Without further ado, Jason Quill opened a portal in the middle of his dining room, to what looked alarmingly like a barren wasteland.

Emma stepped back. The air was hot. “If this has all been leading up to you dumping me in the middle of a random desert in hopes of a long and tedious life-long enmity, I will be very cross.”

“Not a random desert, Nevada.”

Quill stepped right through.

Emma hesitated. She waffled even longer while she retrieved her shoes. She waffled a little more.

But she ultimately followed him through despite her reservations. Because if he wanted to be rid of her, he’d already demonstrated several eminently more convenient ways. Ways she could overcome with much more difficulty than this, and some she couldn’t overcome at all.

Ways she was beginning to believe Jason Quill really had no plans to inflict on her even under duress, because if there was such a thing as Winston Frost’s complete antithesis, it was this.

And with that thought it was clear that she needed to change the course of the conversation. “Pyro won’t be joining us this time?”

“He’s still developing his pictures, he told me in no uncertain terms not to bother him for the next 24 hours at least. Kind of weird that he’s so comfortable being effectively stranded in the Mirror Dimension, but I’m not about to complain about having earned my employee’s confidence.”

Not just his, Emma privately thought. “Is that why we’re here then?” She asked before she could truly admit that even to herself. “To build my confidence?”

“Not quite.” Quill turned around just as the portal closed behind her. “Your blind practice has given you an interesting affinity for mining other frames of reference, thus being able to steal skills without the burden of the memories. I didn’t want to do this before, because it would have distracted you, and possibly destroyed your control of your abilities – or attention span – for at least some time. However, I think we’re in a good enough place now that I can give you an advance on your contractual compensation.”

“Is that so?” Emma did her best not to show how nervous she was. “What precisely would that be?”

“Mutant powers are like spells, but encoded in your being, the x-gene is just the physical marker. You get a leg up on base power and intuitive applications, whereas my sort have to learn everything from scratch. I still prefer magic for its lateral scalability, as opposed to your vertical, but the ups and downs are quite different the higher on the Epsilon-Omega scale you go. You in particular are quite high up on the power totem pole, that’s another part of why I hired you. Any attempt to affect your powers is bound to carry some risks. For me. But I’m willing to take that risk if you’ll let me.”

“… You’re saying you can enhance my powers?”

“Not quite. I can, however, let you perceive their true extent. And their limits. Temporarily, but perhaps long enough to let you make good on your signing bonus, as it were.”

Emma hesitated. For quite some time.

But, ultimately, the lure of power was too strong. “Only from strength does freedom spring,” she murmured,.

Quill’ face lightened. “You read the Cypria!”

“Guilty.” Emma admitted, crossing her arms in a gesture she wished wasn’t so obviously defensive. “What do I have to do?”

“Very little, really.” Quill reached out, took a hold of head entire head with his large hand, and pressed his thumb right in the center of her forehead. “Open your eye, Miss Frost.”

She opened her eye.

Emma Frost opened her third eye and saw entirely too much, but the rest of the world blinked too.

“-. November 9, 1980 .-“

This is not WHAT I MEANT BY Hydration!

By John jonah Jameson, Daily Bugle

Tragedy! What else can I call it? What more need be said? The damage, the destruction, you saw the documentaries, the pamphlets, the videos from the Second World War! I always say ‘when will people wake up and realize that everywhere propaganda goes, blatant lie flows?’ Everything Captain America did was supposed to be the pinnacle of heroism, he was the Truth, Justice and the American way, a light to shine our path ever onwards in these dark times! Now it turns out that the Cold War is just the surface of the mess he left behind. A mess we, the innocents, are now forced to clean up. Except we can’t because we’ve been forced to live our lives with blinders on! And who put on those blinders? Why, our very own alphabet soup of a government!

Hear ye this, what may just be the most important news of your life! The kind of story most get scared away from, even though it’s the most powerful weapon you could ever have on your side! Truth, ladies and gentlemen! It can unmake corporations, upend governments, destroy presidents, and it's been due to get aimed at the alphabet soup for years! But it needs you, the readers, to make it stick!

Hear ye, then, what really happened last week in Los Angeles! Read here the ghastly truth of Captain America’s failure. Read the legacy of the SSR’s complete botch job of a Trans-Atlantic crusade. And, most important of all, read of Hydra’s not-so-real fall that we still suffer the consequences of today, from as close as our neighbor’s house next door!

The Unified Theorem - Chapter 17

The climax of the volume begins.

It'll take several good chapters though.

Let's see if I can make the payoff worth the wait.

Understanding Does Not Presage Peace - Chapter 20

I'm sure most of you saw this coming.

Also, I was taken in by the 'd'aaaw' stratagem, unfortunately. Apparently, while other animals might take shelter in their dens, wombats don't actually actively rescue other animals during fires, so I corrected that bit in Chapter 19.

Yay for the 'mercy is exclusively human with very few isolated exceptions' thing being even more correct than he thinks, I guess?

Hanzo's Side Trips in the Far Future - Invincible

Just something I sketched out in a couple of afternoons, while taking a break. A random idea about what Hanzo, the protagonists of Understanding Does Not Presage Peace, might stumble over while roaming the dimensions in search of anti-slider countermeasures.

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Inviolable

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“Good god, not another one of these.”

Invincible turned from where he was admiring the Earth to gape at the man who’d just appeared where Allen the Alien had not so long ago been sitting. And standing. Breathlessly.

On the Moon.

“I swear, it’s like someone planned it so these world-braids all rolled up in the same tangled ball. It’s one of those synchronicity-heavy universes too, I came out right where someone just happens to be standing in defiance of all common sense. This is just perfect. Hey kid, I don’t suppose you happen to be one of them omnidisciplinary genius types in complete defiance of your choice of spandex?”

“Wh-what’s that supposed to mean? Who are you?! Where did you come from? How – how are we talking? How are we breathing?”

“I always bring some atmosphere with me, long as you don’t go more than ten meters away you’re fine.” The big man scratched his beard. It was red. So was his hair. “My name’s Miron. I jumped from a different dimension to get here. Or different world-line, depending on whether that’s really the Earth down there or not. Could I bother you for an answer to my question now?”

Mark stared. “This day just keeps getting weirder.”

“Well, that answers that.”

Now Mark felt offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Since you’re not a robot or in power armor, you’re clearly not one of those ‘right gadget for any situation’ tech types. You’re also not trying to pull mind games while you figure me out or call for backup, so you’re very likely not one of the other hyper-intellect types either. I don’t suppose you know someone like that, though?”

Mark stared. “I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The man pinched his nose. “Okay.” He then ambled over and held out a hand. “Let’s try this again. My name’s Miron and I’m originally from Ireland, though not yours. I assume you have one.”

Mark straightened, trying to be as discreet as possible about hovering on the moon dust that had sunk under his weight. The guy was big, taller than him and a lot broader too, bigger than even his dad. He shook his hand. It was also way big. “I’m Invincible, Defender of Earth.” Crap, that sounded corny as all hell, didn’t it?

Miron looked at him with a flat stare of recognition, then let go of his hand to pinch his nose. “I thought I recognized the outfit, damn.”

“You know about me?” He was known in other dimensions? Or his costume was? What?

“Something like that.” Miron dropped his hand. “Ok, I definitely won’t find what I’m looking for here.”

“What are you here for, er… sir?”

“Knowledge on interdimensional or para-cosmic travel, and specifically how to block it,” the man candidly answered. “I’ve got the mystical side more or less covered back home, and a fair range in the scientific one too. But it never hurts to add new perspectives, and I had the time free. Unfortunately, from what I know of this branch you’re practically the hotspot for incursions, and nobody ever tries to find a way to stop them wholesale. Unless I’m wrong and you do? Have you ever heard about The Bleed, for example?”

“…No? Look man, I’m really not the right person to ask any of this, I barely just started.” Immediately, Mark cringed at his slip, but come on? This was beyond surreal, right? No, wait, why the hell was he saying ‘barely’, it’d been five months, almost half a year! He wasn’t a rookie anymore! “I might know a guy though.”

“Is he a robot?”

“… Yeah?” This guy really did know stuff he shouldn’t.

There was silence. The guy didn’t ask more questions. He didn’t volunteer any more information. He didn’t make more requests. He didn’t leave.

Mark began to feel wary. “Right. Well… What now? Do you need help? Do you need to get to Earth, to leave, what…? 

“I find myself in a moral quandary.”

Mark tensed. “What’s that?”

“On the one hand, it’s best for me to leave as soon as possible, lest I somehow get myself and my world entangled in the absolutely ridiculous number of interdimensional, multiversal and time travel messes that always happen here. We’ve got enough of that already, please and no thank you.”

That was good, right? Good for Mark and Earth at least – wait, no, did he just say the Earth was under threat by dimensional invaders-?

“On the other hand, if I don’t do anything with what little stuff I do know about this branch, a lot of horrible things will happen up to mass murder, genocide and rape. What do you think I should do?”

“What kind of question is that?!” Mark snapped automatically, his wariness suddenly swept away by outrage. “Are you kidding? Of course you should do something, what kind person are you?”

“Do you always fly off the handle like that?” The man asked dryly. “What kind of person are you?”

Mark grit his teeth and took a calming breath. “One that doesn’t take kindly to people who could do the right thing but choose not to.”

“Well alright then.”

Mark suddenly felt unable to move.

“Since you’re so decisive about what others should do and never mind their own opinion, I’ll respond in kind.”

Wha-?

“I’ve locked the energy state of the air around you, you won’t be able to move until I let you.”

Shit!

“I really don’t know much about this reality, it wasn’t among my interests so I only know what I found out incidentally from others. Fulcrums like you, though, there’s always more under the surface.” The man put a hand over his chest and grabbed him by the head with the other. “With all these convergent and adjacent realities, maybe you’re lucky and I don’t need to run my mouth about things I don’t know enough about.”

Mark struggled to get free, to punch, to fly away, to move, dammit move-

“And it seems the event that seeped awareness of you across realities has already happened, and it was exactly what I hoped – reincarnation. More specifically, yours.” The man’s voice was full of grim satisfaction. “I’m going to do you a favor no one ever did me, kid. Try to live well.”

Something reached in him, through him to something that was more him than anything else, and pulled a knot.

Markus Sebastian Grayson fell down with a gasp and a moan.

His consciousness was obliterated under a sudden flood of memories that were as foreign as they were familiar, and spanned a period of time many times longer than all the years he’d been alive.

“-. Mark Grayson .-“

I gasped back to consciousness somewhere high up in Earth’s atmosphere.

“Mark!”

I abruptly decelerated and realized I wasn’t flying on my own. I was being carried by someone. By…

“Mark, are you alright?” Nolan Grayson demanded in a fretful tone, switching me from a fireman to a princess carry. “I searched space for hours, I only found you because Cecil directed me to an all-new anomaly on the surface of the Moon, what happened?”

“… Holy shit.”

“What, son, what happened? Why were you unconscious? Did that alien do this to you?”

“Who? What alien – oh, Allen?”

“Allen? Who’s Allen?”

“The guy you sent me to fight, I-“ My vision blurred as images of Allen from dozens of different perspectives flashed through my head at once.

“That’s it, I’m taking you home.”

“No, no, it’s alright, Dad, I can fly on my own.”

Somehow, I didn’t make a liar of myself. Dad watched me the whole time as if I was about to faint again at any moment, but we made it home without further incident.

Somehow, we were still in time for dinner, if just barely.

Memories from dozens of different lives flowed together again, when I saw the food spread, but it was easier this time. Also, I was already sitting down when they spilled over, so that helped. I remembered what the rest of the day would have been like, had that strange man not shown up. I’d have tested just how much I could hold my breath in a vacuum, just to enjoy the sight of Earth from orbit for as long as possible. In some lives, I even went to the Earth and back just to refresh my air supply for another view. Several times.

“So,” Debbie Grayson broke the silence when Dad proved too preoccupied quietly fretting over me, unlike what I vaguely remembered should have happened by now. “How did it go, today? Nolan? Mark?”

“With what?” I asked distractedly. “Oh, the fight in space? Not bad at all. He won’t be back. Turns out he’s been coming to the wrong planet all this time, every three years for nearly fifteen years. I’m glad I took the time to talk to him.”

Dad finally seemed to snap out of whatever it was. He visibly decided whether to press, eventually deciding not to. “Well Damn, son, I’m impressed. I wish you’d been around the first time I fought him.”

“Sounds to me like someone at this table should start using his brains a little more often than his brawn,” Mom teased Dad, instead of waiting for me to excuse myself like I… vaguely remembered it going originally. Second-hand.

From drawings on a page.

“Oh come on, how was I supposed to-?”

“Our son did.”

Dad sipped his milk. “Beginner’s luck.”

“Sorry I worried you, Dad,” I said when the latest rush of many alternate memories settled. “And sorry too, Mom, if not for this Dad would’ve been home early today. I know how rarely that happens.”

“I’m just glad you’re alright, Mark.” Mom, as always, maintained her façade of strength with all aplomb. “Now pass the potatoes.”

I passed the potatoes, pretending I didn’t see through her act, as usual. “Still, I feel really dumb. Falling unconscious on the moon, who does that?”

“Someone with a lot of willpower, if little else,” Dad smirked. “Not many can claim to be able to override their need to breathe. I can hold my breath for two weeks, but I doubt I could hold it until I passed out like that. From what I saw, you just fainted right where you were, no fall crater, barely any more streaks in the dust than if you’d turned over in your sleep, you didn’t even begin to fly back to Earth when it happened.”

I stayed silent, despite how embarrassed I felt. I wasn’t ready to share what happened with the strange man, I – I just needed to get my head around it first. Most of all, I didn’t…

I didn’t know if I was talking to Nolan or Nowl-Ahn.

“Well, it was for the best in the end,” Dad said when I wouldn’t speak. “Had you passed out somewhere in space, I’d have had a hell of a time finding you. Contrary to popular belief, us viltrumites don’t actually have telescopic vision.”

Or heat vision, x-ray vision, super breath, freeze breath, super hearing, as far as Superman deconstructions went, we were kind of nerfed. Not that I felt all that short-changed about it. I was more suspicious of the various secondary powers that were conspicuously absent from the narrative that was my life.

Chiefly, super reflexes.

The way spaceflight-capable beings just managed to find and intercept each other in the vastness of space was another glaring hole in the logic of reality, with how often it happened without any high-tech equipment to guide them. Us.

Me.

“Well, thanks for the food mom, it was great. I’ve got school tomorrow, though, and I‘m beat. I’m gonna turn in now.”

“At least make sure you rinse your plate.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”

I took my plate to the kitchen and washed it thoroughly. I then looked at the dish pile. I cracked my knuckles.

I managed to get it all cleaned and squared away in less than thirty seconds, despite being careful not to stress any of the plates and pans. Viltrumite hand-eye coordination did, it seemed, scale up alongside our speed. I also accounted intuitively for the enhanced forces, frictions and heat generated by my movements, as well as the little issue of water not having time to fall and soak at that speed. Especially the thicker oil grime.

Dry scraping and vibration did more for the pans than the soap, and for rinsing I couldn’t get any benefit form my superspeed at all. I had to wait for the tap to flow like everyone else.

Tap water, I thought darkly. Unless Cecil Stedman was lying, American tap water is laced with a chemical that makes it impossible for people to see certain frequencies of light.

As far as plot devices go, it was a real hair-pulled. It only got worse when you considered that I was a viltrumite, not human. Part-viltrumite, but viltrumite genetics overpower all others, so it was the same thing. Since the white room was my bane in a lot of the lives I now recalled, even well into the future, that meant it worked on viltrumites as well as it did everyone else.

I need to have a talk with Eve.

That would have to wait until tomorrow, though. For now, the matter of my super reflexes – or lack thereof – still required my attention. From all I’d just felt and seen during my dishwashing training montage, it felt as if all the pre-requisites of super reflexes were there.

So why could I still get sucker punched?

By random goons too.

I pondered that question on the way to my room upstairs. Even if someone got a hit in, I should be ale to react mid-way through and keep myself in pace with my flight, at least. The Mauler twins shouldn’t have been able to bounce me from wall to ceiling with a single backhand.

I entered my room. I took it in. I looked down at my homework. Physics and world history.

I dropped on my belly and began to write. And think.

Physics didn’t go any faster than before, whatever the weird man did to me didn’t come with any sort of knowledge dump. Just dozens and dozens of flashes of memory of me doing this before, each one filling in one detail or answer so that I practically filled everything in more from memory than problem-solving ability. It was convenient, but not particularly useful for the future.

World History was even weirder. My head swam with factoids from a whole bunch of different lives, and most of them were the same. And accurate to the textbook, as I found after double-checking. Except in those cases where they weren’t, but only because I found out the real version of events later, in some of the alternate timelines I lived.

In the future.

Except that according some of the stuff I learned in the not-future, alternate timelines might just be past timelines that got reset. Somehow. For some reason. I certainly wouldn’t be able to remember them if they hadn’t occurred at some point. Not if the man on the moon was serious about this all boiling down to reincarnation. Pas life memories.

When I was done with my homework, I laid back on my bed and closed my eyes to think. Consider. Imagine. Wonder what the hell I was going to do.

Trying and failing not to have an existential crisis.

My head swam with memories of living this life. And parallel lives. Sometimes I was good, a lot of times I was bad. Some lives ended quick, some ended much later, some didn’t end at all and the memories just cut off after a certain point. Sometimes it was because I died, sometimes the world ended, sometimes a glowing tentacle monster threw me to the past, or that’s what it made me think. A lot of the memories of these… alternate universe selves? They just ended with no explanation.

Conversely, I remembered how some would go for the next few years, but not what happened until now. Since some of them had me as a loyal viltrumite empire soldier, though, maybe it was for the best.

There was barely any emotional weight to any of the memories. As if… they were just second-hand or third-person experiences, like a game. Others felt as if I’d just… recovered from amnesia only to find that who I was before didn’t matter compared to who I was now. Because there were eighteen years of full, vivid memories of life between then and now.

I could practically feel my perspective changing, though, with every bit of information and recollection that slotted in. Felt my perspective broaden with… experience. Especially when it came to myself. I…

I had something of a temper, didn’t I?

Beyond all that, though, there was one other life. A life lived in a world without superheroes at all, or anything abnormal. Nothing extraordinary, except maybe the sheer depth of pettiness that humans could get up to when not constantly tested by existential terrors. In that life, I was just a human. Like everyone else. Just a regular guy.

A regular guy who’d once read a comic book called Invincible.

A comic book that predicted mass murder, genocide and rape.

My rape.

And, somehow, even worse.

I rolled over in bed.

If nothing changed, at some point I’d be a victim of Anissa.

None of the lives I now remembered included a memory of that. They all cut off before anything like that happened. Maybe just before that would have happened. For that alone I was willing to believe that the man on the moon – Miron – really did mean well by doing this to me. Revealing this to me.

Warning me.

I rolled over on my other side. I tried to sleep. I couldn’t.

I needed to figure things out. I needed to plan. But I wasn’t in the right headspace to plan. I needed to clear my head.

I got out of bed, put on my costume, flew out the window and straight up into space.

There should have been more heat. More heat than on escape velocity, which I exceeded in seconds. There wasn’t even enough heat to compare to re-entry. I reached space in minutes, with no damage to my can-be-punched-through-by-random-mooks suit. Just like the first time.

I’ll make one flight around the world.

Or three. Or ten. As fast as I could.

By the end, either my mind will have settled or I’ll be too tired to care and finally able to get some sleep.

“-. Nolan Grayson .-“

His son was lying.

He may have told the truth about Allen the Alien, but Nolan didn’t believe for a second that he just passed out on the Moon because he was too starstruck by the view. Mark was bad at making excuses, yes, but only because he so rarely had to make any, and almost never did because he accepted responsibility instead. He technically didn’t try this time either.

But he did skirt around the topic, letting Debbie and him draw their own conclusions.

Mark also didn’t seem to be aware that he’d been encased in an air bubble up until the moment Nolan entered it, at which point it dispersed. It left no trace of its existence behind, at least nothing like a device.

Mark hadn’t passed out from suffocation. Something else had happened to him. Or someone.

Someone strong or fast enough to take him down without him being able to throw a single punch in return. Someone so far beyond him that they didn’t even need to bruise him to prove a point. Someone that did something to Mark, or said something to him, to keep him silent. Or maybe they took him down before he even knew what was happening and Mark had just convinced himself he’d run out of air.

There were things in the known universe that could do some of that to a viltrumite, especially one who’d just come into his powers. More than the Empire knew of.

But of the one or two on Earth who might have managed it through a surprise attack – and had a dubious enough nature that they might try something – none of them were space capable. At least, not in such a brief time window.

Logic dictated, then, that it wasn’t someone from Earth.

So. Either this Allen had done it, or something else. Someone else. Someone who could overcome Mark despite all his abilities, however fresh and unpracticed. Someone, maybe, who had his same abilities which were properly practiced. In which case…

This was a message.

A message not to his son, but to him.

…

If that was true, then he was out of time.

He couldn’t afford to dawdle anymore.

Reset the Universe - Chapter 4

Let's see how many people recognize the last guy that shows up.

I’ve decided that it’s late enough in the timeline that some characters would, in fact, be already born, especially with Emma Frost already a teenager. I’ve thus decided that Rogue does, in fact, already exist (she’s 10).

The Unified Theorem - Chapter 16

The final nail in the coffin of the first book.

Now we're just missing the body.

Understanding Does Not Presage Peace - Chapter 19

Suffering from success, the short story.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Afternoon

Which is to say, it's been so stormy here where I live that trees and, more importantly, power poles have been having a horrible time of it. For you lot, this means that electricity has been coming and going, usually the latter, which has not had the best synergy with my writing schedule. Or my computer, for that matter,

I do still hope to have Understanding updated by Sunday despite this, at the latest. Not as prompt as usual, but we must all endure life's curveballs.

Sadly, this isn't an April Fool's joke.

This consolation prize, though, usually works out for everyone involved, or so the internet tells me.

Master of Wood, Water and Hill - Chapter 10

For those who haven't seen this yet, the story up to this point can be found on AO3, FF.net and where you'd least expect it.

What response I get on this will decide if I make this the third monthly updated story, or if I go back to Reset the Universe. Alternatively, I may just cycle through the other stories I have on hiatus as inspiration strikes. 

The Unified Theorem - Chapter 15

The last unambiguously nice thing that'll happen for the next not-so-little while.

Who could ever have seen this coming?

Understanding Does not Presage Peace - Chapter 18

The most complicated missing persons case.

Reset the Universe - Chapter 3

Escalation doesn't even begin to describe what happens here.

The Unified Theorem - Chapter 14

Winter's Veil is serious business on Azeroth.

Understanding Does Not Presage Peace - Chapter 17

The repercussions really start catching up with everyone, even during the briefest downtime after mass murder.

The Vagaries of Human Physiology

So APPARENTLY I was headed towards some seriously bad lung-related news, and because my body is ever so accommodating, I was completely lacking in symptoms. So when I took some powdered donkey's milk out of pure solidarity, it set off something in my lungs and precipitated an absolutely gruesome two weeks of snot, phlegm, internal fever (because I can't even do that one properly), and coughing my lungs out almost literally. I've been unable to go for more then a few minutes without a chronic coughing fit, and it gave me muscle fever in my back and abdomen just from coughing so hard. Also, it absolutely fucked up my sleep schedule.

Good news, it's passing and I'm not secretly headed towards what kinda sorta might have been pneumonia anymore.  Or pleurisy, given how much I've been sweating out. Bad news, I won't be able to update the third story this month.

On the bright side, I should be able to start updating Understanding at the start of the month again.

Hope your winter's been less dramatic than mine.

The Unified Theorem - Chapter 13

New guests actually solve problems for once.

Understanding Does Not Presage Peace - Chapter 16

The butcher's bill, through the eyes of the one left to clean up the mess.

A glorious new year, everybloody.

Master of Wood, Water and Hill - Chapter 9

Because it's the 20th anniversary of The Return of the King motion picture, but everyone in Hollywood are complete morons that somehow didn't conceive of the notion that re-launching the film in theaters would net them absolutely ridiculous piles of cash, I've decided to return to this story.

Some parts of this were adopted from Tolkien's book with minimal changes as an homage to the irreproducible style of the Old Forest chapters in The Fellowship of the Ring (though I tried my best otherwise). Moreover, the songs have only been modified insofar as they needed to fit the different point in time and activities of the characters mentioned.

You can find the story so far here, here, and here. I might switch between updating this one and Reset, once in a while.

Glad Yule and Merry Christmas.

The Unified Theorem - Chapter 12

Time passes and the things everyone expects to happen don't happen because Aiden Perenolde isn't the only one obstinate.

Understanding Does Not Presage Peace - Chapter 15

This took a LONG time to finish, but I hope the wait is worth it. It ended up being 18,000 words.

In fact, it may or may not be the chapter that makes or breaks the story.

The Unified Theorem - Chapter 11

The incidentals finally cross paths properly. Much exposure ensues. Not all of it appreciated by all involved.