The First Planeswalker: Ignition

Hi all! this is my first published fic, so please don't degrade it!

Now, then. My "The First Planeswalker" series is about my fanwalker, Xeno, and his post-Mending misadventures.

Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to thank Hikari Hellspawn for some topics mentioned in here, such as the fanplane Etrides. Everything else that isn't my idea would be the intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast.

So without further monologue, onto the fiction!

Chapter One: Zendikar

As Nahiri arrived on Zendikar after battling Sorin on Innistrad, she noticed a sigil of leylines on the ground.

"Gideon, Jace, Chandra, and Nissa used those to pull the whole physical forms of Ulamog and Kozilek onto Zendikar before binding them to the leylines and incinerating them."

Shocked, Nahiri spun towards the voice, which came from a human sitting on the underside of an airborne hedron. The man continued speaking.

"They had attempted to imprison Ulamog again using hedrons, but Ob Nixilis ruined that strategy and awakened Kozilek. Furthermore, have you ever wondered why Ugin didn't respond to your call for help shortly before you were imprisoned in the Helvault?"

Nahiri's jaw dropped. "Xeno? Is that really you?"

Xeno grinned. "Who else would it be, teacher?" He dropped down to Nahiri's level of terrain, landing unharmed. "The answer to the question regarding Ugin depends on which timeline of Tarkir you choose. On one, he'd been killed by his twin and archrival, Nicol Bolas, sevenscore years before the Helvault incident. On the other, Bolas' former agent Sarkhan Vol time-traveled with a shard of the Eye to put Ugin in a healing coma. Ugin himself is currently at the eye, and was hoping the titans would remain alive."

"H-how can you still be alive!? The last time I saw you was a millennium after the titans were trapped here!"

"Easy - my age when we first met was already greater than yours, Sorin's, and Ugin's, combined. I'm not just any pre-Mending Planeswalker, I'm possibly the FIRST Planeswalker. The Mending was an event on Dominaria threescore years ago, when a bunch of fellow 'walkers who actually cared about the Multiverse gave up their sparks to heal time rifts on said plane that resulted from Urza's time-travel experiments. The healing of the last major rift also radically changed the Planeswalker spark, meaning that all 'walkers who hadn't absorbed at least sixteen sparks or an equivalent amount of mana can no longer ignore the rule of 'mind over matter' that was applicable to pre-Mending ones. Unfortunately for the Multiverse, Bolas had absorbed that much mana in the Conflux of Alara, when the shards thereof rejoined after being split since shortly after you entered the Helvault."

"Thank you for the warning, Xeno."

Both 'walkers turned at that point and faced the approaching Ugin.

"You're welcome, Ugin, but there are four other facts that you two should know: that the Mending did not prevent transplanar portals, that Bolas created an undead army capable of surviving said portals on Amonkhet, and that a failsafe failure regarding the trap on Ixalan has resulted in Bolas now controlling said trap."

"That was three things," Nahiri observed.

"The fourth fact is that I had absorbed at least sixty-four Sparks when the Apocalypse Chime rang on Ulgrotha sometime pre-Mending. I can help stop Bolas, but that will involve a stop on Dominaria, one on Etrides, a few instances of time travel, a visit to Mercadia, and possibly releasing Emrakul from Innistrad's moon and having said Eldrazi accost Bolas mid-'walk. Failing that, I'll be on Ravnica. Nahiri, now might be a good time to tell Ugin about the events on Innistrad and your part in them. Yes, Ugin, you will be mad, but it could be much worse. See you lot later."

With that, Xeno 'walked away.

"Nahiri?"

"Yes?"

"What in the Eternities was he talking about!?"

"I'm not sure who will be angrier at me when I'm done answering that question: you or Sorin. I'm unsure about some of what he's talking about myself..."

Xeno reappeared briefly.

"By the way, Phyrexia's back, and Karn dug up the Golgothan Sylex to deal with that issue. Suffice it to say that I might swipe the superweapon for use against Bolas or even lure Bolas to New Phyrexia before activating the Sylex. You have been warned. I'll be on Dominaria for a month or so before hitting Etrides. Goodbye for now."

He left, leaving the 'walkers who observed this markedly concerned.

At which point, a familiar baritone spoke up.

"Nahiri, who in the Eternities was that!?" Sorin Markov asked.

I'm just getting started here. so stay tuned!

Yes, Xeno learned lithomancy from Nahiri, and was sitting on the hedron's underside without falling off because he's a master Gravimancer, or gravity mage. His other skills include antimancy (AKA negation magic), hypermancy (the magic of extradimensional spaces), and xeromancy (the magic of copying stuff). Not only did he invent the last one on that list, but he is the best known mage to use it on magic itself, a technique called xerothaumics, and his experiments with applying xerothaumics to itself have caused several artificial planes to collapse prematurely. He did manage to become the only known Recursive Xerothaumaturgist this side of a plane at least as far from Dominaria as 4096 times the sum of the diameter of the known Multiverse and the distance between Mercadia and Taysir's native plane of Rabiah.

Spoiler Alert: Anything beyond 1/64th of the aforementioned distance contains more Eldrazi Titans, and their on-plane avatars are big enough to make the combined Blind Eternities bodies of Ulamog, Kozilek, and Emrakul look like a planesbound water molecule. You have been warned.

See ya!