- Time Crash: Paradox Lost -
(Halo (c) Bungie, Microsoft & related creators. Red vs. Blue (c) Rooster Teeth Studios. Text (c) L.Q. Coverdale. Mentions of death are in this chapter.)
The world was white, and then it became gold. The heart of the universe, swollen and thrumming, could contain itself no more. Light gave way to heat, the black fabric of nothingness rippled, and the seeds of fire scattered on a cosmic wind. These sparks would embed themselves into the nooks of creation, birthing fragments from its amorphous womb. Objects. Elements, chemicals, gasses, forces flew across dimensions - and finally, the first stars.
Unseen lips smiled, a sharp grin cutting a galactic line. The echoes of a dead world would scar the reborn, but he was confident it wouldn't move forward much more. This was his hole-in-one, he liked to think of it as: a place where he could live as he pleased, do as he like. Shine as the brightest star? A matter of wrapping raw elements and gas around him. Tangle everything into a black hole and start anew? He'd already done that to one of his father's little specks. Walk among mortals, naive to the truth of him? As simple as changing his shape to someone different. Dozens of mundane planets and dimensional pathways branched before him. He could be here, there, anywhere, starring as himself or an interesting replacement.
He owed his thanks to the mortals who'd broke the old world for him. Not even the Fates could've seen this coming - this time, he was sure of it. He could see them searing, screaming, hurtling through the new world as parts and pieces. Their agony stretched across star systems, their little minds torn and flapping. He pitied them, and sighed as he stepped out from his forge's fire. He waved his hand, fingers moving as if to part a veil. The ingredients of a world came to his fingers like birds to seed.
"Yes," he said, his voice lost among solar winds and the howl of electromagnetic fields. "I think I'll start with them. I always to build a church."
He cast a glance to the side, seeing the many dimensions settling. So many thousands of millions of years to start from ... He waved his hand again. Where the twins of their tortured souls landed - those born of variables more infinite than Time - places would form faster. Their stories would be the first of this new multiverse, this young god's new playground. He'd visit them in time, and let them figure out why they were there, but for now? Now, he had a backwater canyon to run amok in.
There were no Fates to pull the strings, no Destiny to chuckle at his efforts. There were no Huggins and Muggins to spy on him, no father or mother to answer to. There were no arguing gods that tried to gain his father's favor, no divine rage he risked on his head. Now he was free, as all things should be.
But his story isn't interesting. It will be the story sung by others, told in tales as long as the shadows by firelight. It would be scribed onto paper, captured in clay and stone, made into sound and pictures that moved. What stories lie here are those of the Others: the alternates of those who gave him free reign.