In a universe nearby, a dimensional ball of energy interacted with the world to crack it just enough to allow a young woman magic on a scale yet before unseen. This allowed others magic, and the world began to wake up.

But this crack was not only felt in that world.

It was also felt elsewhere.

Very close by, in another Earth Bet, a young woman was afflicted by a very similar crack, this one an extension of the earlier break, and began to scream.

Unlike others similar to her, she never got a "Trigger". Instead, the magical energy flowing along this crack affected her down to the very core, sending bits and pieces of her soul in ways they were not meant to travel, and bleedover from another universe made for a very interesting feel to the magic that suffused the young woman's soul.

In one universe, that allowed her the use of enough magic to rend the world assunder.

In this one, it allowed her to see what has happened in the past and affect it with knowledge from the present day, rather similar to a certain bard, one half kami and half dragon.

Thus, her screams, caused by pain she would experience, or rather send to her past self, in the near future.

This would seal the fate of her world, and in the process, save it from utter anihilation.

But who would be so kind? Certainly not this world.

Taylor's eyes snapped open, breaths coming out heavy and panicked. Dammit! This was not the time to be reliving this nightmare!

She tossed aside her covers and dashed to the closet, placing her military uniform on over her nightclothes, and her lab coat on over that. She would need the armor incorporated into the first and the devices woven into the second. The weapons were just in case of personal trouble, and a familiarly comforting weight, an accord to the military who were humoring her, and an option in violence, which allowed her to be lethal should she choose, as well as simply disarming, on command.

She ran out of the apartment building and ignored the marvels of scenery she'd once chosen it for as she closed in on her hovercar. A golden being not unlike Scion of Earth Bet was approaching, and they needed all hands on deck to repel him, maintain the shields and man the guns, no matter how futile the gesture.

Speeding along furiously in ways that fighter jets of the late twentieth century would be endlessly jealous of, she broke several local civilian speed limits in her efforts to get to the labs in time to do some good.

The land shuddered as the being's lackeys, it's golems, hit ground and began their assault, attacking in ways that the local populace were unaccustomed to, and that left her shuddering as she recalled half-remembered dreams from a past life, or some such. Endbringers, they'd called them then. Behemoth, Leviathan, Simurgh.

We were ready. This time, millions would not die.

Instead, Billions would when Scion decided we were not worth the time. Him or his wife, the so-called Eve, levitating nearby. But that would happen when it happened. If they could stop the Endbringers, then as proof-of-concept, their weapons and strategies would be beyond useful. This knowledge needed to be passed on!

If only the targeting systems had been complete months ago, then this could have been avoided.

She looked down out of the window, resisting the urge to close her eyes to such devastation. So many dead, because they hadn't been able to work fast enough.

She looked forwards again, determined to at least kill one of the beasts before the day was done, if it was at all possible.

And to rub it in that rat bastard Finkerton's face that she had been right about them all along.

Taylor sat up and stretched. It has been some time since she'd been up for the sunrise, imprisoned as she had been, but her muscles at least weren't completely unaware of their repeated use in an effort to build them.

Then again, it had been some time since she'd last seen the sun at all. Nightmares rarely held anything for her anymore, the cruelties of reality making them a welcome escape, and the pain experienced long ago inuring her to the little bumps and bruises of daily life.

This world, it was a world of magic. Not unlike Journey to the West, of Chinese literature. Monsters, demons, dragons and more, all featured heavily, and very little in the way of technology.

Her dreams of Brockton Bay, no matter how clearly they depicted the place as a hellhole, were an escape from the cell she'd been sealed in some time back, months? Years? with no food, no water, and no sun. Clearly, the principles used for the local "magic", magical or otherwise, had a way of keeping her alive while still imprisoned. No way out, she'd checked some time back.

Another thing she'd noticed, was that she still held her sword. She picked up the elegant piece of metal, forged by a journeying Japanese smith and gifted to her for reasons unknown, and began katas taught to her by that same smith and a friend of his. It was not a traditional sword, in fact it was just the opposite. Much longer than a toy sword made for a young child, it hung from her hips to her feet when she held it there, and the blade was reversed. Instead of being sharp on the edge sweeping away from her when held normally, it was sharp on the edge facing her, not unlike the boomarang lookalikes used by Batman from Earth Aleph's DC comics. Rather a poor for traditional uses of killing.

Pretty darn good for a baton, though. Not extendable, but then you can't have everything, and this particular blade was much stronger and sharper than it looked, not unlike a Brute or perhaps a Tinker-blade. It even seemed to hold additional properties from time to time, and cut almost anything she actively tried to cut.

She was unsure why she was being so nostalgic for the world she remembered, however vaguely, when she'd lived in this world for all her life. Whatever she'd done and learned in a past life had no bearing on her situation.

Or did it? After all, learning can be applied anywhere, if you understand it correctly. The only question is if it can be utilized properly.

All she had to do right now, was wait for her punishment to be done. (yeah, stealing from a local man-turned-oni was not a good idea, in hindsight. She'd needed the food, but even trying had been stupid)

A crack reached her ears, and she stopped, straightened, and held her sword to the side, ready to slash to damage, and cut for a kill. This world's demons had not been kind to her there.

Crack!

There! the wall was no longer uniformly granite grey. There was now a black crack running through it, widening as she watched. She grabbed up what few worldly possessions she owned and hefted them to her back. If the prison was not broken and this was only temporary, then she might only get this one chance.

As it was though, this was not necessary. The rock fell away, and she was blinded by the sun in her face, dust swirling through its light as she held down the urge to cough.

When the air had cleared, what she saw struck her dumb, and she nearly dropped her sword as low as her jaw.

There was a dragon, darkened by blacker magics and lying dead in front of her, its body as rent as her former jail, and now that she looked, the rest of the mountainside. Dragons were majestic creatures, wise and powerful and nearly impossible to defeat to boot. Who could have managed such a feat, and was that what released her from her prison?

"So, you are the young maiden that was trapped in here." A melodious male voice resonated across the valley. A suave one. A powerful one. A rather familiar one.

Taylor shook herself and looked, eyes narrowing when she saw the voice's owner. "Oh, it's you." Because of course it would be the god who wanted in her pants.

Taylor snapped her eyes open in fear, registering a cautious touch to her arm and a concerned, freckled face framed by curly brown hair and a kind expression.

"Excuse me, I'm Panacea. Do I have your permission to heal you?"