Fragmentation 1.x

Of all the worlds the entity had approached in its millennia long journey through the galaxies, this one, called Earth by most of its current inhabitants, had the oddest parallels it'd ever seen. Its partner in this journey would have said the same thing, but that one was socially incompetent and rather short sighted. Of course, it WAS the Warrior of the duo. But as the Thinker considered the parallels again, it saw something that would have intrigued even the Warrior's low level thought abilities. It was enough to make the entity put the shards it had received from the third entity away. For now, at least.

Delay, the entity broadcasts to its counterpart, pausing outside what the 'humans' called the Kuiper Belt.

Concern, the Warrior responds, its already human shape frowning, as it practiced its new form.

Confident, the entity replies.

Destination, the Warrior queried.

Unchanged, the entity finished.

The idiot apparently still didn't know how to use the new host's languages yet. Typical of it, as it rarely spoke in the previous cycles. The entity had delved itself into the few precognitive shards it had held back from the third, when a future in one of the parallels seemed to announce itself to the entity's sensor shards. One of the many apocalyptic worlds, 'and there were shockingly many of those' it mused to itself, had caused sentience in things it hadn't even thought possible without technology. The radiation filled planet had caused sapience to form in crystalline structures, as well as radiation itself. Two hundred and forty six cycles before, there had been a crystal that had achieved sapience, but it was created through the technology given to the past hosts by the entities. The fact that radiation itself could become sentient gave the entity further pause. It seemed that the entities had not discovered all that was possible with gamma radiation after all.

The Thinker focused its more potent sensor shards to that timeline, then noticed the pure insanity that world held for its inhabitants. Apparently, humanity had wiped itself out through nuclear war, but instead of causing an extinction event, the planet seemed to adapt to the advanced radiation. Humans, plants, animals and robots adapted to 'consume' radiation, growing more powerful with more contamination. Then it got worse. The entity soon came to a realization that the timeline it glimpsed at wasn't from one Earth, and was in fact a conglomeration of an entire sector of the multiverse. It had honestly never seen such a horribly depressing group of worlds. Sometime during the evolution of the original planet, the new world was visited by the Inter-Dimensional Police Department of an alternate Earth that had not undergone an apocalypse, which proceeded to spread the plague of radiation into an entire quadrant of the multiverse. That is, all except the dimension the department came from.

Following the invasion and the failed quarantine of the first Earth, portals between the quadrant's earths began to appear. Apparently, due to the I.D.P.D.'s constant journeying, they broke the quadrant. The only event with similarities to what was happening in that region had been when the Warrior accidentally mixed the "sting" shard and a "jump" shard, with the exception of it staying within the quadrant without interference. Around the time the portals began to appear, adventurers began to travel through the portals, hoping to return to their homes with rewards from their journeys. Fear that those who journeyed though were fated to die, only the bravest of wanderers attempted the jumps in search of companionship, radiation, and riches. But while the adventurers who went through the portals never returned, others came through with tales of heroes and combat that spread throughout the sector.

One such hero, deemed "The Proto Mutant" wandered the wasted worlds until he found a place of legends, The Palace. The Proto Mutant was said to have found a great Nuclear Throne inside the palace, with the ability to remove radiation from the worlds and eventually stabilize them. Nobody knew what happened to him, but the tales of his travels wove their way into the hearts of mutants and oddities across the worlds.

Of course, the entity had seen what had actually occurred. The palace was a trap, set by its guardians to feed the Nuclear Throne radiation. The Proto Mutant had activated it in hopes that it would drain radiation across the worlds, but instead drained the radiation from his body, scattering all but his skeleton through a mess of portals.

However, the stories had influence, and attracted twelve mutants to a campfire, all hoping to be the one to save the world. These twelve beings, Fish, Crystal, Eyes, Melting, Y.V., Steroids, Robot, Chicken, Rebel, Horror, and Rouge, summoned the shards that observed them and compressed themselves, powers and souls, into something new. These new Mutes Shards joined the entities shards, each called by their namesake. Twelve new shards from one planet was inconceivable to the entity, as only one cycles have gotten close before. With two. If one quadrant of this planet's multiverse contained twelve new shards, what could the others?

Continuation, the Thinker projected to its partner.

Agreement, the Warrior replied.

The Warrior would have to practice Earth's languages soon enough, but for now, the entity returned its attention to the new shards from the third.