Lost Log 14

Eleven minutes, twelve seconds.

That's how long it took for a Forerunner fleet to arrive. Fairly fast, honestly, given the current state of the galaxy.

Thousands of Slipspace portals appeared, most of them a respectable distance away from the Halo. Ships began emerging from them shortly, as many as five or six from a single portal. All three of us turned to look at the portals, simply for a lack of anything better to do.

The Iso-Didact's ship is in the center of the formation, protected by the many ships of the fleet. The formation itself is rather loose, spread wide, but the positioning is efficient when it comes to unleashing the firepower of the fleet on any prospective targets.

A moment after the arrival of the fleet, I feel the combined shock and surprise of its personnel, and I couldn't help but feel some amusement at that.

No surprise, though. The assimilation crystals covering the Halo were inspiring enough, but I'd added something to it only a few minutes ago.

Winding coils of Festum flesh wrapped around the ring, forming a circular double helix. Waves of light crawled across them, pulsating fractal patterns coming into existence for a scant few moments before fading. Neither had any particular meaning, they were there because they looked pretty.

I waited thirty seconds, before turning my Envoy-Type's head directly towards the Iso-Didact's ship. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

Four streams of light appeared from the platform, one for each of us, and the fourth, empty, though its intended occupant would come down soon enough.

Ten more seconds. Then-

A golden flash of light as the Iso-Didact translocated onto the platform.

"And the guest arrives." The Primordial seemed apathetic. To his left, Mendicant Bias suddenly seemed apoplectic. It turned to me after examining him for a moment. "Was this the one you were waiting for? A soul in a body not its own?"

"Primordial." The Iso-Didact said the word like it was poison. Then, his head turned, and he beheld Mendicant Bias. "Mendicant Bias." And, finally, he turned to me. The word was careful, the Iso-Didact not knowing what to make of me, but it came nonetheless. "Drich."

The Primordial chittered. "Drich? Is that your name, or is that what you are?"

"Both." I spoke. "Though that matters little."

There was an odd, hissing sound, from it. "I suppose. None shall remember you after I am done."

"Oh? I didn't know Precursor memory also suffered from age. Well, there is no shame in being of such poor make, but if I must remind you; it is not I who will be forgotten."

It shook, slightly. Fine dust fell from it in waves. It hit the platform, and promptly vanished, assimilated.

"But enough of these games. We have until your death to insult each other. This one-" My head turned to the Iso-Didact. "- has far less time."

Confusion was such a fascinating expression on a Forerunner's face.

"Iso-Didact." I addressed him. "Your species appears to be under a delusion. Many, in fact, and most of them perpetuated by this one here." I turned back to the Primordial. "But we lack the time to go through them all. So I will instead simply start with the most important."

"Bold words." The Primordial noted. "And what deception would this be?"

"Immunity." I answered. "And the Flood."

"Immunity?" The Iso-Didact questioned, expression furrowing. "What immu-" Realization danced across his face. His armour darkened, slightly.

"Ah, yes." The Primordial shook again. "The thought that there are things we cannot infect. An amusing one, to be certain."

"It only took three hundred years before they were enlightened." Such a vicious tone, Mendicant Bias. "My master claims the Forerunners are cunning, but in a display like this, it is hard to see."

"Can the Flood choose not to infect?" The Iso-Didact asked. It wasn't really a question.

"There is judgement, and timing." The Primordial seemed to delight in telling him that. "And certainly, no immunity."

"Then why? Why allow this cruelty? Are you the font of all misery?" His voice was subdued, but still dangerous.

"Misery is sweetness." The Primordial stated. "We absorb, and bring unity. In the end, naught but quiet and wisdom."

For a few moments, there was silence. "You told me before that you were the last Precursor." He glared at the Primordial. "How? Your body is nothing more than a number of other victims melted together- A Gravemind. Were the Precursors all Graveminds?"

"No." I answered before it could. "That which you see before you is the remains of several Precursors, formed into a single being."

The Primordial nodded, after a moment. "Many of those who created you were hunted. Many, extinguished. A few fled beyond your reach."

"And those that did-" I spoke softly, slowly. "- became you."

"We are the last Precursor." It said. And then, with an oddly eager air about it, it continued. "All twelve."

"And thus, another secret is revealed." I noted. "Do you see, Iso-Didact? The most effective way to hide the truth is tell only parts of it."

Another shake from the Primordial. Another hiss.

"Time draws short, Iso-Didact." I stated a moment. "One more question."

He considered it for a few seconds. The Primordial was remarkably cooperative.

Finally, he made his decision. "How can you control any of this?"

"We are the Flood." It said.

"They are synonymous." I continued. "This body in front of you; make no mistake, it is just another puppet, much like all Flood bioforms."

"My minds, my souls. These are free, not confined to my flesh."

I held my hand up. Slowly, assimilation crystals appeared, spreading upwards from the Primordial's hands and legs.

"How we pity you, so limited in your existence." Was all it said, before the crystals covered it completely.

I glanced at Mendicant's Monitor shell. It very promptly collapsed, suddenly void of power.

"Iso-Didact." I turned towards him. "There are events soon to follow, the likes of which you will not believe. Be prepared."

My swarm vanished. The assimilation crystals shattered. The winding coils surrounding the Halo disintegrated into nothing but dust, and then nothing at all.

In another reality entirely, I burst into laughter.

Hot damn, doing the mysterious alien act is fun.

Lost Log 15

Thirteen hours, fifty four minutes, eight seconds.

There is no longer any Flood bioforms in Forerunner space. There hasn't been for an hour, actually. Outside of it, sure, but none are currently inside of it.

My swarms were even now spreading outwards, into the Flood space outside the Forerunner's own borders.

Nothing but appearances, at this point, really.

The next stage in the war was already coming. The next stage, and the final one.

I could feel it.

One of my swarms materialized in a Flood-controlled system. By all appearances, it seemed like nothing special; a planet consumed and covered by the Flood, a few hundred ships, not all of them Forerunner, hanging in orbit...

And yet...

There was a palpable feeling of oppression throughout the system. Light seemed harsh, piercing, cutting. Stray particles bounced off of my Festum with what looked to be far more force than they should have possessed. It is almost harder to move, as if space itself wished to impede me. Subtle things that were nevertheless noticed because they were different, all giving me the single impression that I am not welcome here.

The more obvious thing was the Primordial.

Its mind, its power, stretches across the system, in a way that isn't just it reaching out from its flesh. It is infecting far more than just organic beings and mechanical minds, now.

"Your appetite is voracious." I couldn't help but say to it. "You spread your infection so eagerly, corrupting even the very fabric of reality. Is this your neural physics, then? Combining thought and mind with matter and energy, space and time?"

"A blunt manner of describing it." There is no air to carry the sound. My swarms, all of them, are out in deep space. Space itself distorts, temporary particles coming into existence for that sole purpose, then vanishing the moment their task is complete.

It's as much a show of power as it is a method to communicate with me.

"Superb." I give the compliment freely. And I meant it, too, because it's impressive; a capability that beggars belief. "But it will not save you."

Here it comes. Step three. Hook.

"Arrogant to the end." The Primordial projected a feeling of mirth. "There was a time when we were called gods."

"I've met beings who have been called gods, before." The Masari. But the Masari and the Primordial existed on entirely different scales.

"Have you?" There was an honest curiosity about it. "Well then. If even this is so unimpressive to you, then perhaps I shall take one step further."

Line..

"Are you holding back even now?" I asked, a little bit of levity in my tone. "A truly foolish decision. But still, it will make it easier for me to wipe you out, so, please continue. Make it a little easier for us both, actually."

It laughed. Actually laughed.

Sinker. Step three, complete.

"I will grant you the honour of watching this apotheosis." It said.

And then, it let me see.

Across the galaxy, the Flood. So much Flood. While I had been wiping it from system after system after system, it had been spreading eagerly through territory that it already controlled. Entire planets had been subsumed, their ecosystems converted into Flood biomatter, followed shortly after by whatever useful matter it could get its hands on, until it reached the next stage of Flood development.

A singular bioform that spanned an entire planet. An ocean of flesh and mind and bone. Such a thing possessed enormous amounts of processing power, a match for even a Metarch-class Ancilla.

A Key Mind.

The Primordial had created them in the tens of thousands. It had spent the last fourteen hours building up to this, converting every world it held, every world it could get its hands on in such a short amount of time...

It was enough processing power and mass that it could finally start utilizing the greatest power of the Precursors; neural physics. At first, it had only tapped into the pre-existing architecture that had been created millions of years ago, and then used that architecture to spread its infection into the fabric of reality, but now...

Now, the Primordial showed me the so called 'next step'. Across Flood controlled space, reality shivered as the Primordial worked; normal matter rearranged into Flood biomass. Entire celestial bodies were altered, barren planets and moons becoming Flood planets and moons. The available processing power jumped again and again, more worlds being converted at a faster and faster pace.

It continued, increasing exponentially- until, very suddenly, it stopped.

The Primordial had reached critical mass.

Then...

The Primordial showed me its work, but really, it wasn't that necessary. I could sense it myself.

New neural physics architecture sprang into existence, and then spread rapidly. The network was heavy, dense, building upon and integrating with the previous network. More and more of local reality was seized, taken control of by the Primordial- until even that stopped.

Finally, there came one last stage. The Primordial showed it eagerly enough.

Its mind spread into the architecture it had created. It was a vast, vast thing- and now, it could store the entirety of itself in those metaphysical constructions.

"Transsentience." The Primordial stated.

And then it dragged the minds of every being it had consumed with it, bringing them away from the Flood flesh, and hiding it with the newly created architecture.

"Do you think you can take these back, now?" It was downright gleeful.

"Well... That was the idea, yes." I snapped my fingers.

In an instant, two creations of mine that I had prepared a few hours ago appeared, transitioning from phase space. Both were massive, though one was far larger than the other.

Both were shells, one mechanical, the other crystal. The mechanical one was the single largest object I had ever created- so large, in fact, that it enclosed the entire galaxy.

An internal diameter of two hundred thousand light years was enough to neatly enclose even the distant ring of stars surrounding the galaxy. The shell itself is multiple astronomical units thick, containing the stupidly large amount of gravitational manipulators required to make this thing not collapse into a black hole, an equally ridiculous amount of energy generators, and then enough defensive measures to ensure that nothing was going to be blasting a hole through a part of it.

But the most important aspect of it were the countless modified phase pulse generators equally spaced throughout, on top, and inside the shell.

And when I say phase pulse generators, I mean the ones used on the Halo Array. You know, the things that allowed those rings to kill everything in twenty five thousand lightyears.

Why did I need such a thing? Well, first off, insurance. If I couldn't win, I was going to nuke the galaxy, because that was better than letting the Primordial do its thing.

But the real reason was containment.

Across the shell, those generators activated, drawing upon truly vast amounts of energy. Here's where the 'modified' comes in; instead of firing and realising their deadly payload as a single burst, it was instead released as a constant field, extending about a thousand light years in every direction. From all of them.

The result?

The galaxy was completely cut off from everywhere else. I'd enforced a two thousand light year wide shell in which any neural physics would be utterly destroyed.

Containment. The Primordial would not be getting out. It could not escape through neural physics-based FTL, and trying to travel through Slipspace would be a death sentence to anything that wasn't a machine. Even then, if I didn't want it to leave, it wasn't going to. That shell was fully capable of obliterating any would-be escapees.

It probably would have been easier if I had used countless ships, instead of a single, supremely large shell. But hey, this just wouldn't be Halo if there wasn't gratuitous megastructures.

Also, Fusou can brag about her dyson shells all she wants. I win this one.

The second shell was much smaller, only about thirty thousand light years across, though it too was multiple astronomical units thick. It appeared around Flood space, serving as the first layer of containment for the plague. With this, I would have enough power to challenge the Primordial directly.

Which I immediately did. I attacked it from all sides, striking at its mind with all the power this smaller shell could bring to bear.

"Primordial~" I downright purred. Oh, now it was realizing what had happened, now it was suddenly aware of just how badly it had been played... "You dun fucked up now."

The first blow is simple, straightforward, and direct. It's blunt, but it's powerful, and in essence, a sledgehammer.

I batter the Primordial's mind with reckless abandon. It blocks, and then shortly redirects it entirely, shifting the mental strike into the physical world.

The raw power scatters entire solar systems, blowing them away like dust in the wind. Stars, planets, moons, asteroids; all are reduced to little more than relativistic clouds of dust.

It's not much other than a love tap, honestly. Nonetheless, it establishes the kind of stakes we're playing on here.

The next attacks are nothing as simple as pure, blunt force.

The Primordial acts quickly, utilizing the new web of neural architecture to try and warp physics. It's attempting to make the local reality inhospitable to my continued existence. To an extent, it works; the tens of thousands of swarms I had roaming around in its space very promptly vanish, no longer compatible with the twisted physics.

The shell, however, does not. The counter is three-fold; a quantum field in order to stabilize reality and enforce normal physics, a mental strike on the Primordial, and interacting directly with the neural web in order to halt those changes.

It took the better part of three hundred and ninety timelines to work out how to do that. Until I did, I had had no other option than to either use the Halo array to kill it, or take it before it could build up entirely. I had succeeded far less than I had wanted to in the latter.

I pour power through the architecture, attempting assimilation. The Primordial, of course, fights back, but it's only when it stops trying to warp physics against me that it succeeds in getting me out of its web.

"You weren't the only one who was holding back, Primordial." I said.

It tries a different approach. Throughout its sphere of influence, all Flood bioforms, the Key Minds, begin to grow. Many of them are already the size of planets and moons, but the Primordial doesn't care. It edits reality and adds new matter to them all the same, suspending the worse effects of gravity on them in the process. It is building its mass, and thus, its power and processing abilities.

So I do the same. The smaller shell grows larger, expanding both inwards and outwards. The Primordial tries to counter the inward growth, but it is only partially successful, doing little but slowing me down.

Worse yet for it, even slowed down, the rate of growth is still larger than its own. A few minutes, and I'd be able to start overwhelming the Primordial regardless of whatever tricks it attempted to pull...

"How does it feel to have been tricked, oh ancient one?" I asked. "To have been outwitted and outmanoeuvred so easily?"

I caught a sudden flash of anger from it. I chuckled. "Well, don't feel too bad. I had this all planned out since the start."

The conclusion was more or less foregone by this point. Still, I continued striking, needling at it.

"The first meeting, of course, where I inspired anger in you. An attempt at provoking you to build up and fight me, instead of being cautious and skittish." I hummed. "And I must say, it worked beautifully. You responded as I intended, going to build up your forces instead running and scattering. For that, I didn't have to hunt you down..."

Another burst of anger. It was becoming increasingly desperate, looking for a method of escape. There wasn't any.

"Taking the minds out of your grasp." I continued. "A show of power, and my desires. Our existences are antithetical, neither of us would allow the other to continue living. You would see that I was alleviating suffering, and your decision would be influenced into choosing to fight me. Another success."

Still looking. But it was slowly losing its ability to impede my progress, and soon enough, it wouldn't have enough power to stop me from accessing its neural architecture. At that point...

"My swarms... As you've no doubt deduced already, I didn't use anything near the amount of I could. An illusion, of course. I wanted to give the impression that I was a powerful foe, but not one completely undefeatable. I wanted you to believe that it would take nothing less than neural physics to defeat me."

About two minutes left. And a mote of confusion from the Primordial.

"Oh yes, I was quite aware of your capabilities before all of this. Another illusion. Displaying knowledge of it would have been detrimental to what I wished you to do." I answered the unspoken question. "Which was, of course, to deploy neural physics."

More confusion.

"The third step, getting you to host your mind, and the minds of everybody you infected, in your neural architecture. Simple enough. Display some irreverence at your capabilities, inspire you to take that step." I clicked my tongue. "The reason for that, of course, being that it would thus put all those minds, and you, into a single place. All, unknown to you, not as invulnerable as you would think."

One minute left.

"And from there, I sprung the trap. Two shells, one to assault you, and the other to keep you contained should you, somehow, win against it. No doubt, you can sense the outer shell, can't you? The energies it is employing... No possibility to escape, because you would be killed just going near it. Should you have won, I was prepared to evacuate as much as I can, and then unleash those energies freely."

I chuckled.

"I could probably wipe out a couple hundred million light years with the number of phase pulse generators I've equipped that thing with. Genocide on a scale that this universe has never seen before, and probably would never have seen again. But, I'm not a monster. And it proved unnecessary, anyway."

Ten seconds.

"What do you think of it all?" I asked.

Silence.

Five seconds.

Two.

"Brilliance." It compliments.

Endgame.

My available energy is now sufficient to overwhelm its defences. I pour pure mental power against it. It still tries to defend itself, still tries to keep me out of its architecture-

But this time, it fails on both counts. I seize more and more of the architecture, my available power still growing. With every bit I seize, I undo what it has done to reality, and push further inwards.

It doesn't give up, and it never will. Pointless struggle, but I could respect it nonetheless.

Eventually, I control the majority. I use that majority, coupled with quantum fields, to stabilize reality.

The moment I can send in units, I do so. Planet-sized chunks of photon-crystal appear around star-sized chunks of Flood biomass, and the Primordial very shortly enjoys having its physical mass assimilated.

And now, it was trapped within the architecture it had created. No Flood biomass to escape into, possessing precious little processing power...

"You're probably the most dangerous opponent I've ever fought." I acknowledged. "How things might have gone different if you had actually known what you were up against."

I reached out, beginning to assimilate it. It fought back, kicking and screaming more or less, but, ultimately...

Wasted efforts.

"Give me your life, Primordial."

Lost Log 17

Incredible. You maintain cohesion even when I've assimilated you.

It flung its mind around, trying, in vain, to hurt me. It couldn't, because now, I had assimilated it. This was my mind. I offered it no power, and it had so very little it could bring to bear on its own. Little by my standards, at least.

Do you really want to know how I beat you? Fine, here. Look. It's not like you can do anything at this juncture.

Yes, precognition. No, your loss isn't a surprise now, is it?

No, I don't play fair. I never play fair. Certainly, you never did, either.

Just stop already, would you? It's over.

Then, finally, it was quiet.

Merciful quiet.

Let's see... All the other minds it had taken. I sorted them, then started repairing them. Give it... oh, not that long, and they'll be restored.

But the Primordial itself...

It was old. So old- at least, the Precursors who had become it were old. Strictly speaking, the entity that was the Primordial only came into existence around ten million years ago.

But the rest of the Precursors? Much older.

Tech? Lots of stuff. Lots of things I couldn't do beforehand... Eh. Didn't really care about it too much. I'll look over it later, if something ever comes up. The biggest prize was neural physics, which...

Eh. Yay, I'm even more overpowered than before. Good for me. I'll get to that later.

Memories? Many. So many. The memories of every being that had been infected by the Flood, and the twelve Precursors who had become the Primordial... Not going to take long to look through them all, what with those massive shells to serve as processors, but even without them...

Speaking of.

The larger shell promptly took a short jaunt into oblivion, unprotected by quantum fields. Didn't need that, any more.

As for the smaller... I'll leave it there for the moment. I do have to repair basically... that entire area of the galaxy. The Primordial and I had not been gentle to it.

What else... Knowledge? Well, I suppose that it falls under 'tech', but still, the Primordial had a lot of it. Neat.

Surprisingly unenthused about this.

Ah well.

Fuck it, what else? Nothing I needed from the Primordial, nothing I needed from those minds...

Ah.

Pay attention, Primordial. This is the only thing I will give you.

A single Worm Sphere burst into existence, fading away a short moment later to reveal a small Diablo-Type.

Around it, the Forerunner fleet reacted instantly, coming to combat readiness- but otherwise not doing anything. Didn't really care about them. The only ship the fleet that was of any importance to me was the flagship, the Mantle's Approach, which, incidentally, also happened to contain the only two Forerunners I cared about at the moment.

"Didacts, I would speak with you." Both were present in the same ship. How nice of them to make this easy for me.

A short few seconds later, the shields around the Mantle's Approach flickered off. My Diablo vanished in a flash of light, before reappearing with another, though in a much smaller size of only three meters.

The two Didacts, of course, were present. Off to the side, however, was another Forerunner, who I actually recognized; the Librarian.

My Diablo-Type's head turned to her. I idly noted the sudden tightening of muscles on both Didacts. "Librarian. Your presence was not anticipated, but it is fortuitous."

The colour of her armour shifted slightly, indicating a degree of confusion.

My head turned back to the Didacts. The Iso-Didact stood at the left, while the Ur-Didact stood on the right. Both looked exactly the same, save for their armour; the Ur-Didact had less of his body covered.

I decided to open with the biggest bomb first. "The Flood is dead."

And there was the shock I was looking for. Another interesting expression on a Forerunner's face. How amusing.

"Dead?" The Librarian asked.

"Vanquished. Ended. Removed. Defeated." I turned to her. "Never to return. Thoroughly, irreversibly, dead." And then, back to the Didacts. "For the moment, this is irrelevant."

"Irrelevant-" Both of them said as one, their tones heated.

"Yes." I cut them off. "There is history that needs to be revealed. History that you-" I turned to the Librarian again. "- are aware of."

More confusion. More of that delightfully amusing expression. Then, sudden and stark realisation. Her head fell, and she took a fortifying breath. "Path Kethona?"

Oh, how the Primordial delighted in that. Now, it was realizing what I was doing, and despite itself, I felt a bit of gratitude come from it.

"You learned it there, yes." I nodded.

"Wife?" The Ur-Didact asked her.

She shuddered, before straightening. "Nine hundred and forty years ago, shortly after your exile my love, I proposed an expedition to Path Kethona. We were to investigate, and search for the origin of the Flood. We did not locate it, but we did find something else."

"An ancient colony of Forerunners." I supplied. "Descendants of Forerunners who travelled there ten million years ago."

"Quite the surprise..." The Librarian murmured. "We -my crew and I- discovered the planet. We found that the entirety of the planet's biota was based on Forerunner genetics, though there were no advanced technologies evident... Well, that matters little. What is relevant here, I believe, is what I learned there. The Forerunners of that world had stored their history, dating back ten million years. I learned that history. I found the reason why our ancestors had travelled so far."

"War."

"Extinction." The Librarian stated. "The Precursors, in ages past, decided to entrust the Mantle to another. This species was Humanity. Our ancestors... did not accept this."

The Didacts were smart. They were quick to figure out what the Librarian was saying.

"And so, they chose to wipe out the Precursors. Extinction." The Librarian finished.

"The greatest crime of the Forerunners." I noted. "Such jealous children your ancestors were. They did not get what they wanted, so they lashed out, and in doing so, almost completely wiped out the Precursors."

Oh, such grief. Such shame. It didn't matter that they hadn't done it; it had been their species, and the crime had been incredibly great.

The Primordial drank it gladly, laughing at them, though they could not hear it.

"Revenge." The Iso-Didact's head fell. "That is the origin of the Flood."

I nodded.

Lost Log 18

"Twelve Precursors survived, as you know." I continued after a moment. "They decided upon revenge. They combined themselves, and the entity you know as the Primordial was born from that. Six formed its original body. The rest became dust. And, ten million years of drifting later, it was found by Humanity."

I paused for a moment. "The Primordial's grievance was legitimate. Its actions were not. Humanity, and the countless other species in the galaxy that it had absorbed and infected, had done it no wrong. The suffering it brought about was therefore unacceptable. I chose to intervene, but make no mistake; I did not do this because I care about your species. The crimes of your ancestors have long since passed, but your current generation still has sins of its own."

The Librarian's armour blackened. The armour of both Didacts did much the same.

"Such as the multiple times your species intervened with others so that they would not grow to challenge your dominance." I dug the knife in a little. "As well as the times when you moved entire species from their homeworlds because it was convenient to you." I dug the knife in a lot. "And also the times you would reduce entire species to small populations, tightly controlled so that they might never rise again to threaten your dominance..." And twisted it, too.

The Primordial roared with laughter and pleasure. Utterly ecstatic.

I let the silence hang in the air, accusing and dangerous. "Who knows... if it wasn't for the fact that the vast majority of your civilization held no part in those crimes, then I might be conducting this conversation with the tip of my blade at your throats." I raised my Diablo-Type's blade, examining it.

But then, I let it drop. The dangerous atmosphere vanished, replaced with a cold chill.

"I do not know and do not care what becomes of you after this. But, maybe, just maybe, you might find some form of atonement." My head tilted to the side. "But then, you might not, too. What will happen then... Oh well. It matters not at the moment. It is unlikely we will meet again. Goodbye."

And with that, a Worm Sphere consumed my Diablo-Type.

Are you happy, Primordial?

It was. Oh, it was still displeased with its current situation, but that act... It had mollified it. Just a bit.

A little bit of kindness, perhaps misplaced. Oh well.

This would be so much easier if I could just hate you, you know?

No, I don't hate you. Certainly, your actions infuriate me beyond words, but...

I know you all too well, Primordial. Your memories are mine. Your thoughts, mine, your personality, mine.

Your history. Yes, that too, is mine.

You know why now, don't you?

Of course you do. You're smart.

Sleep, Primordial. This is the last mercy I will extend to you.

Hmm?

Yes, I'm quite aware that you would never have extended any such mercies to me if you had won.

Foolish? Perhaps. Still, I like to think I'm a good person.

Now sleep, would you? Sleep deeply, and dream of better times.

... Be happy.

Silence.

Just a few things left to do...

I still had the lesser shell, and through that, enough power to employ neural physics, both to create new architecture, and tap into what already existed.

Which was what I did. After all, that architecture housed something else of interest.

A repository of information. The repository of information.

The Domain.

It had been created by the Precursors over five hundred million years ago, but the knowledge it contained was far older than that. Its purpose was to serve as an eternal library of experience, and so far, it had done its job just fine.

Perhaps one of its more interesting aspects was that it was self-aware, possessing a will of its own.

I did the metaphysical equivalent of poking its shoulder. It reacted to me with interest, prodding back a moment later. Curiously child-like, but this was certainly no child.

"If you would be so kind, there is knowledge I wish to access."

I sensed a bit of eagerness as it opened its records to my perusal. The Domain was, of course, eternally yearning to spread knowledge.

I reached into it, towards the deepest, and the oldest, bits of knowledge that it contained.

How old?

One hundred billion years.

Yes. One. Hundred. Billion.

The significance of such an age was readily apparent. After all, this universe was only thirteen point seven billion years old. It seem an impossible number, but...

Well, it was the Precursors.

It wasn't for no reason that the Forerunners had labelled them as 'Transsentient'.

But, the Forerunners had no goddamned idea. The Primordial had not been joking when it had said that its minds and souls were free.

Perhaps... I should elaborate.

The story of the Precursors begins in a cold, and very nearly dead universe. When all but a select few stars had faded, when entropy was nearing the maximum, they had arose on a world surrounded by darkness. There, they did as many species would; grew, advanced, learned. They were hamstrung by the advanced age of their universe and all the effects thereof, but they were a bunch of clever bastards, and they didn't let it stop them.

In the dark, they advanced, built up. They travelled outwards, braving the dark, so rarely encountering even so much as an interstellar cloud of dust... A lonely existence, to be certain.

Then, four billion years later, they made the first steps into developing what would eventually come to be known as neural physics.

And not long after, they recreated themselves entirely. They abandoned purely physical, limited forms, and became something more; metaphysical, transsentient, unbound by the limits of conventional biology.

Free minds and souls, existing on a level beyond the material... Though they still wore physical bodies, those bodies were little more than puppets, something that housed the Precursors, but not the Precursors themselves... An incredible power.

But even with their newfound power, there was so very little in the universe to see. They exhausted everything of interest quickly, and from there...

They grew bored. They began creating as a way to relieve that boredom, began expanding the architecture throughout the universe, started playing with physics like a child might play with toys. Tens of billions of years passed in this manner; all the while, the universe continued to grow older, aging and expanding as it always had.

Then, even the oldest stars wore out. All was cold and dark, and so dreadfully dull.

The Precursors came up with an idea.

Why not restart?

Thirty millennia of constant, unending labour later, they were ready to implement their plan. Neural architecture had been spread throughout the entirety of their universe, a truly vast construction on a scale that was barely comprehendible.

The first step was reducing entropy. The second was increasing gravity. The third was reversing the progress the universe had made.

Where the universe wished to expand, the Precursors instead coaxed it to contract. Matter and energy, space and time, all came together instead of rushing apart.

It ended with a crunch.

And began again with a bang.

Lost Log 19

The Precursors induced an artificial Big Crunch, and then, a Big Bang.

Restart indeed. The Precursors survived, of course, safe from even those cosmic energies thanks to their nature. Those who had eventually become the Primordial had been there, watching that magnificent sight...

It is, without a doubt, the most awe-inspiring thing I have seen. The rebirth of a universe... They're not my memories, but I'll be cherishing them regardless.

And thanks to the Domain, I'm now seeing it through the eyes of every Precursor who had ever deposited their memories into it, which is to say; all of them. Combined experience, combined knowledge...

Honestly, the vast majority of it is simply another viewpoint, another set of thoughts, on situations and experiences that I already know. The Precursors were rarely out of contact with each other, and those who had become the Primordial were certainly no exception.

The Precursors had watched the redevelopment of the universe with interest. Their own had been old, too old for them to have learned much about the earliest stages of existence. From the single moment where the universe was incredibly, inconceivably hot and dense; to the formation of photons; to the formation of matter; and, ultimately, the formation of planets, stars, and galaxies, the Precursors watched it all.

When the universe had cooled enough to support life, the Precursors incarnated themselves, becoming physical and biological once more. They lived, died, and then lived again. They wore forms that ranged from simple bacteria, to more complex multi-cellular life, and then macro-scale biological organisms. They'd die, then take a new form only to repeat the process.

This, they felt, enriched the universe itself. It was a simple fact of their knowledge; the universe lived, though not as they did, and the experience of life enriched it.

It did not take very long for them to start seeding other forms of life throughout the universe. They travelled from galaxy to galaxy, left bacteria and potential in their wake. Eventually, they would come to the Milky Way, and seed life there, too.

All of it was done in the name of experience and enrichment. To store such experiences and knowledge, they created the Domain, building a transcendent archive into the neural architecture of the Milky Way. They even placed imprints of their own experiences and memories inside of the Domain. It was amusing, really. The Domain remembered its own creation from the viewpoints of the Precursors who had created it...

For a time, all was well. They watched their creations grow, evolve, stand up on their own feet, whispering encouragement where it was needed. And oh, they were so proud when the first of those species managed to expand into space. Such grief they felt when that very same species managed to destroy themselves...

And then-

And then!

The Forerunners.

Such an incredible, magnificent history, such a beautiful, wonderful species...

Wiped out because of a fit of jealousy! The Forerunners were screaming toddlers, lashing out when they did not get what they wanted!

The Forerunners wished to inherit the Mantle, but the Precursors saw something special in the collection of species known as Humanity, and chose them instead. A spark of wonder, a drive which reminded the Precursors of themselves... Wise? Perhaps not. But it was the Precursors' choice.

And thus; the Forerunners lashed out at the Precursors, their sense of entitlement driving them to kill the very beings that had created them, encouraged them, loved them...

Those ancient Forerunners were simultaneously more primitive, and more advanced. They lacked much of the more exotic technology that their descendants would later come to possess, but still, the technology they did possess often exceeded the modern day counterparts. Their weapons, in particular... Much more advanced. Not powerful enough to destroy the Precursors' neural-physical architecture, but enough to break the Precursors' physical forms, then shatter the Precursors themselves.

Those weapons had tapped into neural physics, though only in the most crude of manners. Still, they were the only things those ancient Forerunners had that could kill the Precursors after they had become metaphysical again...

Perhaps it was appropriate that the only application of Neural physics they possessed was employed in their weapons. In those times, the Forerunners had been primarily ruled and led by the Warriors, not the Builders. Violence, and the application thereof, was more common for them in those days. Perhaps they should have been ruled by the Lifeworkers instead... That way, they might actually have had some claim to following the Mantle, instead of mostly using it as a justification...

The attacks were swift, merciless, and violent enough that the Precursors at first simply marvelled at it. By the time they started defending themselves, it was too late. Twelve fled. Three remained behind, and baited a trap. The Forerunners came, of course, unaware, expecting an easy battle. They killed the Precursors, yes, but their death triggered the trap, and the Forerunner fleet was consumed by a black hole.

The only survivors were those who had later come to reject and regret the genocide, and who had subsequently been exiled from the fleet, trapped on a planet without any advanced technology. Those ones, of course, were the ones who the Librarian had encountered and learned the Forerunner's shameful history from.

I would have absolutely loved to have met them in their prime. The Precursors... What could have been...

Instead, I had met the Primordial. Twisted, angry, and soured by betrayal. No surprise, really. Twelve survivors of a species that had once spanned entire galaxies, wiped out by their very own creations? Anger was reasonable. Justified.

Legitimate.

I exhausted the data contained in the Domain shortly. Memories, impressions, thoughts, emotions... So many that the Domain held. Every being that it had touched had had their memories and thoughts recorded for all eternity...

I offered it a bit of data in return for what it had given me. The archives I had built up on the species I had encountered, containing biological code, cultural records, histories... I handed it over freely, though I stripped locations, dates, and excluded a few of the more dangerous ones from the exchange.

The Domain took it eagerly. Just as it wished to teach and spread old knowledge, so too did it wish to acquire and archive new knowledge.

I didn't give it as much as I had taken, but the Domain didn't care about that. It thanked me regardless, and then went about incorporating the new data into itself.

The link cut. I disconnected from the neural architecture. I had all that I wanted, now.

Only a few things left to do, and then... Well, I'm done here, I guess.

Done here, anyway. There was something I needed to do.

Lost Log 20

Now then...

What to do with all of you?

Millions and billions and trillions of minds... Human, Forerunner, San'Shyuum, and hundreds of other species. The victims of the Flood.

Well, I already knew what I would be doing with the Forerunners. They, at least, had a species to go back to. I'll restore them and leave a beacon so that the other Forerunners can find them.

Everybody else, on the other hand... Humanity was currently devolved, watched by the Forerunners. The greater portion of the San'Shyuum civilization had been obliterated thanks to an attempted uprising when the Librarian had come to acquire a few for preservation, and now, there was less than a billion individuals still remaining, all of them on the Lesser Ark.

Putting that in perspective, the Flood had consumed less than zero point one percent of the San'Shyuum population. I still had enough San'Shyuum minds to completely eclipse the current living population. Multiple billions.

For the Humans... Well, the war against the Flood had depleted their population severely, but even so, they still had trillions when they fed the third of the remaining to the Flood in their attempts at curing it. I was fairly certain that if I were to extract all the stored Human Essences from the current population of Humans, it still wouldn't be larger than the amount I had.

As for all the other species... Well, they ranged from complete and total assimilation, to only partial infection before the Flood was burnt out. The former, I could return just fine, since complete and total assimilation had come about when the Flood had infected their entire biosphere, but the latter...

Depends. Some were fortuitous enough to have planets to go back to, but others... Some of them had had their entire worlds destroyed in an effort to stem the tide of the Flood.

It was that last group that I was unsure of what to do with. In many cases, it might have been more merciful to simply not restore them, as they would have extremely limited populations and biospheres. Some of them lacked anything more than mere parts of an ecosystem, unsustainable if it was recreated.

Granted, I could build new ecosystems and biospheres, but it wouldn't be the same.

I guess... that I'll take it on a case by case basis. I can just ask them, after all.

But that left the question of what to do with Humanity and the San'Shyuum. Just recreating them was possibly a bad idea, given the history between them and the Forerunners. While I doubted that any of the three would be eager to start a war, it would still be quite tense, to say the least.

It could prove destabilizing, even. I was halfway entertaining the thought of simply setting them up in another galaxy, but... Well, this one was their home. Some of them wouldn't mind, but others would fight to the end before abandoning it.

Others had fought to the end before abandoning their homes. Fought desperately, in fact. I couldn't expect them to just give it up.

If I brought them back, many would wish to reclaim the worlds they fought and died for. Of course, problem was, the Forerunners controlled much of the former Human and San'Shyuum territories.

Quite a few wouldn't let that stop them. It might very well be easier to just set them in a different galaxy, if only to ensure that it would be a very long time before they could make a journey back. Long enough for most memories to fade, for desires to cool...

But I really didn't want to do that. After all, that would be taking the easy way out.

Ugh. No matter what choice I make, people are going to be unhappy. I set them up elsewhere, those who wish to see their homes again will not be able to do so. If I set them up here, then there's the Forerunners, and the Humans and San'Shyuum who hate them...

Not going to win this one, was I?

I sighed.

I... might choose the latter. And this time, stick around to keep an eye out. If somebody starts a war, then...

Well, I'll deal with it.

Was I making a mistake?

I really, really, really hoped not.

But if I was...

Then I'll own up to it.

The moment I had finished reconstructing everything in what had been Flood controlled space, I shifted the smaller shell into Phase Space, hidden away if it was ever needed. Still, it maintained a connection to the neural architecture in the galaxy, allowing me to see and observe events that were happening.

Like I said, I'd keep an eye out. And as far as eyes went, the immaterial, galaxy spanning network of neural architecture was a really damn good one.

Most of the species I had recovered were reconstituted upon their original worlds, and those worlds themselves were repaired wherever it was necessary. In some cases, those worlds had been already occupied, so I'd worked out a nearby replacement.

For the species who hadn't been completely consumed... Well, I did what I could for them.

For Humanity and San'Shyuum, I set them up more or less on the other side of the galaxy to the Forerunners. I even recreated a lot of their old infrastructure, terraformed worlds to be habitable for them, implemented farms, left millions of resource rich asteroids lying around, and even included a whole bunch of read-me notes and guides... Basically, so long as they didn't decide to ignore it all, they'd be golden for a long, long, long time.

Were people going to be unhappy? Yes. Were they just going to have to deal with it? Also yes. I mean, they were practically coming back from the dead, here, with a whole bunch of stuff already prepared for their use. That's pretty damned generous by most standards.

The moment all that was in place... Well, I was practically done here.

I suppose... I would be moving on fairly soon, then.

Hmm.

Such a brief visit, all things considered.

Though, there was one last thing to do...

Lost Log 21

There were some questions that needed asking. I'd just come from Halo, nearly a hundred thousand years before the start of canon. And while that in itself wasn't strange...

Well, Fusou.

Fusou, who had told me that the first setting she'd arrived in was Halo, circa 2552. I'd arrived in 97,435 BC. Only thirteen years shy of a full hundred thousand.

Which raised the aforementioned questions. We, Fusou, Faith, Tiki, and I, had not been to any universe that another of us had been to, until Mass Effect.

If I'd been to Halo, had I arrived in the past of the same universe that Fusou had been to? Had my actions altered the universe and timeline for her?

Or had I arrived in Halo, but the not the same Halo that Fusou arrived in? Was multiverse theory applicable here?

No idea.

Which is why I needed to talk to Fusou.

Thankfully, I had given her a communicator.

Hope she isn't doing anything at the moment.

"Ohaiyo, Drich-senpai~" And, she's there. Excellent. "What can I do for you?"

"Are you busy at the moment?" I asked. "I have a few questions that might affect you."

"I've got time, senpai, what would you want to know?" Ah, wonderful.

"I arrived in Halo, recently. As in, less than two days ago. Thing is, I arrived... Well, I arrived during the Flood-Forerunner war."

A brief pause followed that statement before Fusou replied. "Okay, now that is interesting, however if you're worried about having erased what I did while there, you don't need to. I just took a moment to check on them and it's the same as it was last time I visited."

Ah, she figured out what I was worried about. "Oh. Well, that's good. Though it raises several more questions that I'd like some answers to... Though I don't think I'm going to get them. For starters, why we all appeared in the same Mass Effect universe, but you and me have appeared in two different versions of Halo." Well, I think I had a clue on that one.

But then again, 'ROB Bullshit' was an explanation I really didn't want to resort to.

"That...well, I can only really blame our collective ROBs, which is much the same answer I assume you arrived at, correct?" Fusou replied a moment later. "That said, would you tell me about what happened there, senpai?"

Hmm? "Not much to tell, honestly. I went in, found myself on a Forerunner planet being invaded by the Flood, started assimilating it-"

"You assimilated the Flood? You're braver than I am, senpai."

"Heh. Yeah... well, the Flood was pretty terrible." Really, really, really terrible.

"-That- is patently obvious, Drich." Fusou responded, her voice rather curt. "I'm...honestly not even sure the Primordial is really dead in my Halo universe."

"I can come and check, if you want? I mean, I kind of... assimilated the one from mine. So. You know. Experience."

"As terrifying as even the mere idea of you assimilating the Primordial is, senpai, I would appreciate it if you did so. I don't have your capabilities, so if you can make sure that it's gone, I would be very grateful."

"Right. I'll probably have to hitch a ride off you to get there, though."

"That's not a problem at all. I have a gate set up out in the Horse-head Nebula in Mass Effect if you want to visit that way."

"That'll work." I said. What was the closest thing I had there... a couple ships. That'll do. Travel time? "I'll be over in about five seconds."

"I'll be waiting, senpai~."

Ah, the Slipstream. Always unique to travel through.

Also a very short journey, all things considered. A few of my ships exited from portals, Fusou's Enterprise doing the same.

The difference was immediate and stark. There was no neural architecture anywhere I could sense... wait, no. There were a few... very few pieces of the architecture left. They felt...

They feel weird. Like Star Roads, actually. They had a physical structure beyond their metaphysical nature.

Hmm. Neat. Check those out later.

For now, precog, go!

Hmm.

"If the Primordial is still around, I can't sense it or find it."

Fusou let out a sigh of relief at that. "Good, I'm glad to know that ten years of constant Halo activation got rid of it."

Well, that explains the almost complete lack of neural architecture.

Actually, now I really had to ask about that. Nothing should have survived, and the fact that something did... "I couldn't help but notice some remaining neural architecture, Fusou." I sent a burst of data, containing coordinates. "Did... you have something to do with that?"

"I tracked down every little bit that I could after I made contact with the Domain and moved it into a dyson sphere to protect it before I activated the Halos. Truthfully though, there was so very little for me to find in the first place."

"The Domain? It shouldn't have survived after the Forerunners used the Halo array the first time. How..?"

"I don't know, but what I found was... greatly diminished." Fusou replied, clear sadness in her voice. "What I know of its capabilities before the first array activation when compared to its current state... It makes me angry senpai. So much was lost and the Domain itself has very little of its mind left. It can barely respond to queries and it'll take millions of years for it to restore even a fraction of itself."

Well, well. Now that... "That, I can help with." The Precursors who had become the Primordial had been involved in its creation. Very few Precursors hadn't been involved, actually, and since the Precursors had left their memories inside of it...

Well, I knew how the Domain had been created. It wouldn't be all too hard to repair it, then fill out its stores of data again.

"That... That would be fantastic Drich~!"

"I'll get right on that, then. Feel free to watch."

First step was to build up my mass and processing power. The few ships I had here weren't going to cut it. Easily solved, spread assimilation crystals, convert it into photon-crystal...

Hmm. I'd need quite a bit, actually. I'd need the mass the size of Jupiter before I could even start making new architecture. Even then, it would be slow...

I sent my ships off in different directions, each only a couple of light seconds away. They'd begin self-replicating quickly, and I'd have enough mass soon enough.

The moment I did, I spun a few new ships into existence, and sent them off to grab the neural architecture fragments.

Hmm.

I was right, they were physical. Bundles of architecture that had taken on physical form... Which... should not have been the case. None of the architecture that housed the Domain was physical. It should have been entirely immaterial...

Curious.

Well, doesn't matter too much.

A short while later, the mass of my now vastly larger ships each reaches an equivalent of Jupiter's. For a few more seconds, they continue growing, the mass doubling again and again and again and again.

Then, it stops. The gravitational effects on the rest of the system are severe enough that I start counteracting them in order to not cause damage.

The next step is... honestly not that visible. Neural architecture springs into existence, and then spreads outwards, immaterial and unseen. For Fusou's benefit, I create some more architecture, and then physical form for it.

A series of winding, twisting Star Roads begin to appear. At first, a massive ring appears around the system's star, before it branches outwards towards the other celestial bodies in the system. It wraps around them, too, connecting everything together in a network of just-about-indestructible architecture.

Just about. The Halo array still exists, of course.

The form those roads take is chosen honestly for no reason other than the fact that it looks cool.

The Star Roads are finished shortly. The neural architecture continues to spread, and as it does, I begin to work with the fragments of the Domain's architecture.

Oh... So much damage. It barely even maintained awareness of itself. And it had lost so much.

Well. Let's see.

The first step is making them immaterial again. Then, incorporating them into the newly created architecture. I begin pouring data into it the moment I was sure it could handle it, even as I worked to repair its intelligence and awareness...

Not all that hard, honestly. Only took a little bit of time.

There you go, completely repaired. Or perhaps healed would be more appropriate?

There was a sensation of thankfulness from the Domain before I disconnected from the architecture I had created.

"All done."

Lost Log 22

I said goodbye and left shortly afterwards. No reason to stick around, after all.

Then, I went back home.

"Well, well, well. You two have been busy." Was the first thing I said.

I sensed... Neural architecture. Lots and lots and lots and lots and I'm not entirely sure we can put in any more because that's how much neural architecture there is.

And not just in this solar system, either.

"Really busy."

"Hi mom." Both of them said, before going right back to... arguing.

"Cyan!"

"Navy is better, and you know it!"

"We did navy blue last time!"

Well, damned if that wasn't interesting to watch.

I could see the star flicking between the two colours as Little1 and Anastasia argued.

The architecture they'd built was being put to good use, because what better use for reality-altering technology than to make a star epileptically change between colours?

Cyan, navy, cyan, navy...

"And we did cyan before that! You need to pick better colours."

"You did the exact same thing with navy blue! You've got no ground to stand on."

There were certainly worse uses.

"Both?"

"Both."

And suddenly, the star appeared to be half cyan and half navy blue. As in, one half was one colour, and the other half of the sun was the other colour. There was no blurring, either; it was just a sharp, sudden change.

"Could use a little bit more magenta."

"That's a funny way to say violet."

"Magenta."

"Violet."

"Your taste in colours is bad enough. Magenta is the superior choice, trust me."

"Please, you wouldn't know colour coordination if it slapped you in the face. Violet is better."

Well, I'll leave them to it.

That star will be a disco ball by the time they're done.

Huh.

So that's how it worked.

Hmm.

Well, that's legitimately fascinating.

I flicked the teleporter on and off.

Now that we had all this neural architecture set up, I could actually see what it was doing...

At first, space bending inwards to form something that might be construed as a tunnel, and then projecting that tunnel across the vastness of space...

Only, instead of going where they were meant to, this universe...

Hmm. How to describe...

Well, I suppose layman's terms will do for the moment.

The fabric of reality in this universe was oddly... weak. And also very flexible, as well as elastic. When the teleporter activates, it should have... well, 'dug' a 'tunnel' through that fabric, connecting two points of spacetime together. An energy intensive process, to be certain. It should have been a relatively neat process, too. The effect on space-time should not have been very significant.

Key word; should.

Instead, what actually happened was that, in the process of tunnelling, space-time in this universe just sort of... bunched up. After about 1.34 light years, it bunches up enough that weird shit starts happening.

Namely, the fabric of reality just twists outwards. It was surprisingly hard to detect, honestly, though that didn't matter too much.

And when I say outwards, I mean it in the same context as phase space outwards. Quite literally out of the universe.

Although I suppose not technically? It was literally bending the fabric of the universe outwards with it, so..? I don't know.

Don't particularly care all that much, either.

The important thing was; that little extension just kept going until it... hit something.

Okay, metaphor is breaking down something serious here. But it was one of the easier ways to describe it, even if it was misleading and not really accurate...

Well.

Anyway, it hit something. That something being other realities.

And when it hit, it... stuck? I suppose that would be applicable here for the metaphor. Well, whatever the case, that little extension linked this reality with that one. Since my Teleporter sent things through that pathway...

Well, that was how I jumped between realities. It was also how I maintained communications, and how my Warp Chasms, and other bits of similar technology, continued to function. That extension linked the two realities, and my signals propagated between them...

And... might have done a bit more? I was fairly reasonably certain that there was at least some degree of...

What to even call it? Bleedover? Meshing of physics?

Well, whatever the case, I was pretty sure that connecting realities in such a manner allowed at least some interaction between them. Some normalization of physics...

Element Zero, for example. I wasn't entirely certain that this reality could have supported its existence before I created a pathway to the Mass Effect reality...

Which is not something I can test. Or, at least, not that exact, specific, situation. I had, after all, already opened that pathway...

But, perhaps, there might be another way?

If I could travel to another universe without creating a pathway, a link, then maybe...

Hmm.

Well, to start, I'd have to figure out how to travel between universes without creating a pathway. Theoretically speaking, not... impossible. Some derivative of phase travel might work... That already allowed exiting the universe, though I would have to find a way to go all the way to another reality...

But, problematically, I'd need to generate a Quantum Field in order for my stuff to survive outside of reality...

Or did I? Again, theoretically speaking, I might be able to utilize neural physics to create something that could survive without a quantum field. The very nature of neural physics should allow it to work anywhere, regardless of whatever particulars were relevant in a reality...

Well, look at me. Getting my science on. It was kind of fun, actually.

...

I wanted to know. I really did. How about that? I suppose this would help in satisfying my wanderlust.

Still, it could require-

Hmm? Well, hello there.

Somebody is actually using one of my communicators.

And it's Altea.

"Hello Altea. How are you today?"

"Drich." Oh, I didn't like the way she said that. This wasn't a social call. "I would like to request your help."

Oh boy. This was going to be one of those days, wasn't it?

Lost Log 23

"Hello, Altea." I greeted her.

She gave a smile, but her features were unusually severe. Which wasn't surprising, really.

"Drich." Her head tipped in greeting.

"So, what do you need help with?"

"Do you recall the monitoring stations we set up?" She asked.

I nodded. It hadn't been that long ago that I'd found out about them.

"I... It is hard to explain with words alone." She held out her hand.

I took it. Her mind touched mine, a connection forming and solidifying.

I saw...

Queen Altea showed me her memories. The monitoring stations had detected... fluctuations, in space-time.

Not just in the local area, either. Though perhaps more readily apparent in the Milky Way, those fluctuations seemingly extended throughout the universe.

What the heck?

Fascinating, but what could have done that?

The Masari... were not quite certain. I made a note of where the fluctuations were strongest, before I cut the link, frowning.

"Well, that's interesting." I spoke.

Altea's hand returned to her side. "You've never seen anything like that, I take it?"

"No." I clicked my tongue. "This is new. And fascinating. And quite possibly dangerous."

Which means I'm going to go poke it with a stick.

"Well." I hummed. "Don't mind me, then. I'm going to check that out."

A Worm Sphere consumed me.

Well then, let's see...

I glanced into the future, and immediately paused.

Huh?

Haven't seen this before. Haven't seen anything even remotely like this before. It's interesting and curious enough to draw even Little1 and Anastasia out of their arguments...

Possible timelines jumping left and right, futures appearing and disappearing...

It seems to be a localized anomaly. Little1 and Anastasia are not experiencing the same when they employ their own precognitive abilities... At least when they're not involving this area. Then it just starts... Hmm.

Very fascinating. Very, very, very fascinating...

I clicked my tongue again, before starting to build up my available mass-

Hmm?

Ooh, that's fascinating...

Another fluctuation had appeared, this one more obvious than the others. It was like a ripple, spreading out at superluminal speeds across the galaxy. A bit of idle curiosity has me glance into the future to investigate the origin point of that ripple.

All I get is the same thing as everywhere else, though taken to a far larger extreme. New timelines were appearing and disappearing at a far greater rate, the future splintering exponentially...

The fluctuation reaches, and passes through a solar system. Even at this extremely long range, I can see it freeze for a moment. The fluctuation continues through other solar systems, and I note that the effect isn't universal; some are frozen, but others continue along unmolested...

Is there any logic to that? Not sure...

I projected a quantum field around my stuff. Not entirely sure how much it would help, but such fields should stabilize space-time... Oh well.

...

There's something else, too. Something that's bothering me, something different where the fluctuation passed.

Not... entirely sure what, but there's a difference nonetheless. Something...

Hmm.

My sensors are telling me that nothing is different, but...

That's going to annoy me until I figure it out, isn't it?

Mayhaps if I tapped into neural physics? I'd have to build the architecture first, but... Well, if that didn't help, not much else would.

Shouldn't take too long. Wouldn't be done before that ripple reaches my stuff, though... Oh well. I'd simply have to see what happens.

I'd still fling a few fragments into phase space. The fluctuations shouldn't get it in oblivion, at least...

Although if it did, that would raise a number of questions and curiosities.

The fluctuations reached my stuff.

The quantum field was only partially successful. The fluctuation was only mostly stopped. Some of it got through.

Which was... odd. How to describe it...

I figured out what was bothering me. What was being left different in the wake of the fluctuation...

Reality itself. The fluctuation had made subtle alterations on a fundamental level. Hard to describe, really.

Still... I think I could guess the purpose of such alterations.

Something, the source of these fluctuations, is altering reality in order to be... more... compatible? The alterations don't seem... immediately malicious... And honestly, they were more 'additions' to reality than 'alterations'.

Well, whatever the case, I should go back to my original point. The quantum field didn't keep it all out. I probably wouldn't be able to keep it all out without neural physics.

And that was a problem, because, reduced as it was, it was still trying to change things. Things like my stuff, and by extension, me.

Which was, to put it mildly, irritating.

Just because I didn't see it as malicious didn't mean I was just going to let it happen.

But how to stop it?

...

Couldn't think of much aside from neural physics, but I don't have that much available mass.

But... perhaps I wouldn't need to?

I wonder...

If this actually works, then I'll be able to shield Earth and Lieta Novus, too.

Let's see. Scrin, Wormhole, link up with Exapol, create the pathway...

Hey hey, that does work. Of course, that meant that the fluctuation now had a direct path to Exapol, but as it ran directly into neural architecture already extending through, it wasn't that much of a problem.

Now then, fluctuation. I spent a moment examining it -very interesting, actually, though I had a feeling I wasn't seeing quite everything- before promptly removing it.

After a moment, I reinforced local space-time even further, compounding the effect of the quantum fields. Should prevent any further effects...

A 'just in case', really.

Now, Earth and Lieta Novus. Didn't have much mass in the former, and absolutely none in the latter, but...

Didn't need any in the latter. The Novus did still have that portal on Earth, and in this case, I think they'll forgive me for using it without their permission.

Rather convenient for me, I suppose. I wouldn't have to send off a ship or something in that direction to get it done.

Alright. Here we go...