So...loooooooooooooOOOOOOOOONG overdue update. As I said in my other story, I have one excuse.

I've been playing Chrono Trigger for the first time.

To any old time gamers who were pretty avid in the 90's, you know exactly how this can serve as an excuse. How many times did you not complete your homework, faked sick for school or work, or pull all-nighters on the console when you first got this game? I believe all of you have.

I've been playing alot when I get off work so not only do I have Sheryl Crowe's feet eyes but I've gained about ten pounds in the last two months and with the new year starting, I figure might as well cut a few hours back and try other previous obligations, like fanfiction and exercising.

Anyway, the motivation for this story had taken a hit when I tried to get back into it after the hiatus and boy, it shows in this chapter. However, I tried to do something new for me. In order to set a series of clear objectives in my mind for this story to get the plot rolling, I went ahead and laid out the whole reason Zelretch started this mayhem of a timeline. Lack of content in it otherwise is simply because I could not bring myself to do something interesting.

I had this idea in my head of having dwarves and elves argue with each other and some of the snooty nature spirits usually native to Japan getting called out on some of the human's twisted shit that comes out of their country (like yaoi, mpreg, etc.) much to their embarrassment, y'know, typical political shenanigans like I see when watching Canada's legal system at work.

Anyway, on with this chapter.

It was only later that afternoon that the formerly dead knights and witch finally reconvened in the throne room where King Artoria was hosting her first court session. Now, to the uninformed, this isn't a court session where one is standing trial but rather a time the King spends listening to his/her subjects. Matters are often a public matter for a few of reasons.

Firstly, the added pressure of stating your case or concerns to the King in front of the rest of the kingdom helped dissuade those who might be more comfortable lying behind closed doors and what not. It also served to 'air out' any complaints someone might have with another and the King would be able to hear everyone's opinion before making a ruling. Lastly, atleast in the context of being relevant at this point of time, this court session would help spread important news openly so it doesn't get mistranslated through gossip. An example would be a conversation the king would be having with her chamberlain acolyte.

The throne room was once again grand and comforting in its appearance with a steady fire blazing from the column torches. Many species of numerous make and size stood along the sides of the red carpet that led from the main room's large doors up to the foot of the king herself.

There were several murmured conversations between individuals in languages unspeakable in the human tongues and inaudible to the ears.

All became silent as the doors opened and in walked King Artoria, her armor same as before and resplendent and intimidating all at once. Her holy lance was held in her left hand and all the creatures knew on instinct if not through the informed that this weapon was more than a weapon but a symbol that Artoria stands as the last anchor between the Age of Gods and Age of Humanity. They knew this divine relic is currently, with little doubt, the most significant and powerful noble phantasm in the modern world, making the only one capable of wielding it as the most significant person in the world at the moment.

Her return from the dead had not gone unnoticed the whole world over. Supernatural beings both small and massive have stirred from long slumbers and great entities of magnificent and/or malign powers have peeked over from the Reverse Side of the World in curiosity. Zelretch had done more than bring back some mere copy of a heroic spirit. His machinations had resurrected her in her entirety. Over the past week, her powers have grown tremendously the longer she ruled from her throne in Camelot. Magic was returning in droves to the British Isles, even over in Ireland and the northern parts of France.

Seeing as nothing less more would suffice, he'd went and orchestrated using Artoria's massive power to bring back the true Mordred and Morgana Le Fay, a very powerful knight and one of the most powerful witches to have ever lived being half Fairy herself and a lady of the lake.

Flanking her were her two kin, Sir Mordred- the Knight of Passion, and Morgana Le Fay- the Fairy of Briton, though human history for some reason remembers them as the Knight of Betrayal and the Witch Queen, details that greatly irked the Pendragon trio.

Mordred was in full armor, head enclosed in her large, horned helmet and Morgana had her black veil over her face. For many of the supernatural, it was like they were relieving a scene from the past. Some even did their equivalent of shedding tears at the glorious sight of Artoria retaking her throne with the knight to her left and the fairy/human sorceress to her right, the lance of Rhongomyniad in the king's right hand held to the side pointing up at the ceiling.

Seeing that her father had everyone's attention and was settled down, Mordred banged the tip of her sword against the stone floor, the single clang resounding throughout the room.

"Be seated. The King, Artoria Pendragon, Rightful Ruler of Camelot and the Once and Future King of Briton- now known as Great Britain- will hear claimants make any matters to the crown known to him after he hears the statements of one Kischur Zelretch Sweinorg, sworn loyal subject to the Crown, Chamberlain Acolyte, Wizard Marshall of the Magus Association, and 5th ranked Death Apostle Ancestor! Accompanying him will be the Honored Head Chamberlain of Camelot, Sakuya Izayoi, with the orphan ward and future vassal of the King, Harry Potter, heir of House Potter of the British Wizard community."

Of course, for several who didn't know, the fact that the king had THE WIZARD MARSHALL of the Magus Association as a maid in training was baffling and downright unbelievable. He was not someone who'd just bow to a show of power considering he could draw on an infinite amount of energy from an infinite parallel dimensions to boost his own abilities up to a certain point where his body would give out.

However, by now, all present knew of the young lady who single handedly rebuilt Camelot, restoring the magic of the Medieval Age to the land. None really knew much about Harry Potter but if the king had made him a ward of the Crown, then there was definitely a story behind that.

With no fanfare, the DAA known far and wide to be more of a jester than a homicidal vampire like the rest of his kind were stepped through the door with the beautiful, silver haired woman following ahead of him carrying a young male human baby who was softly snoozing against her chest. There was a small bit of magic surrounding his head and many attuned to magic could tell it dampened noise levels.

When the two adults approached, they bowed at the knee in respect. Artoria gestured for them to rise and they did as she spoke out to the crowd.

"I will start the first court of Camelot off so that subject Zelretch may explain to us the situation we now find ourselves in and his intentions for orchestrating my resurrection before I explain my plans now that Camelot is returning to glory."

Artoria looked down at him, meeting his calm exterior. "Zelretch, I have learned that you are known far and wide for both your power and eccentric behavior, often times orchestrating events to happen simply because you want to be entertained. I will be frank. I was most displeased to hear of a being of such power having such a reputation, especially as he is the one to manipulate numerous people and events to bring me back to this world and swear allegiance to me. This evidence paints a confusing picture of your character. What say you about your actions involving the events surrounding mine and ward Potter's circumstances?"

Having a little dirt metaphorically tossed onto his image was nothing new to Zelretch. He leaned on his cane in a more relaxed manner, one that irked the knight beside Artoria and caused quite a few sighs from the more human like citizens in the throne room. This was the Zelretch they were more familiar with. The only difference being he didn't have his usual smirk on his face.

"King Artoria, in order to convey to you the sheer magnitude of my reasoning, I'm going to be frank as well. As you may be aware of now, my magic is the operation of Parallel Words. Anything that can happen or can not happen HAS happened in some universe out there and I can connect with myself across all of these timelines. This whole timeline for the past 300 years has been meticulously manipulate by yours truly so that I can move according to a very specific script made by my parallels.

Now, my reasoning. I've done all this because...in exactly 23 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 8 hours and 53 seconds, the world that we all love is going to end. Violently. An infinite number of parallels of myself whose worlds have run along the same path as this one but ahead of our timeline can confirm this when their own worlds were destroyed. I'm merely the next in an infinite line-up using what we've learned to try and avert Armageddon."

...

...

The silence was deafening as all present tried to digest his words and its meaning. To be honest, it was terrifying. None could speak up. Elves and spirits in their millennia of wisdom didn't know what to say. Mordred, who had been gritting her teeth at Zelretch's disrespectful disposition, almost choked on her saliva in surprise. Morgana and Artoria were stiff at the blunt comment given like a weather forecast. Hell, even Sakuya was silent in discontent. The way Zelretch had said that was too confident to be a ruse and it held a hint of weariness in it that made his form seemingly get superimposed by a much older version with wrinkles on the face.

"So, King of Knights," he began again, once again seemingly undisturbed by his doomsday prophecy, "ask away. I'll answer to the best of my abilities."

Magnificently, King Artoria recovered without having been gaping or anything. She couldn't dare appear afraid or weak. Much as they might not know it, everyone was looking at her for leadership, for hope.

The king was contemplating getting Excalibur back from the Lady of the Lake. She could definitely use the Charisma boost right about now.

"Do you know how it happens?"

The vampire sighed and glanced to the side, mainly pointedly looking at all of the nature spirits as if they were the culprits, making many shy from his accusing gaze. He looks back at the King who had been trying to decipher his pointed staring at particular subjects.

"Humanity finally does something that pisses Gaia off. She decides enough is enough and doesn't wait for the Aristotles of the other planets in our solar system to get here and wipe them out. Instead, she decides to take things into her own hands and awakens Tiamat, the Primordial Earth Mother Goddess who has changed from who Gaia remembered. She sees Humanity as an alien invasion that must be wiped out. Within a day, she creates an ocean of black, corrupting mud the size of the Indian Ocean. Anything and everything sentient that touches it gets corrupted, no matter how powerful they are, and are forced into a geass contract on a cellular level, gaining demonic anti-human personal skills and an anti-human authority like a diluted Primate Murder, and becoming a loyal child of Tiamat once more, all while the ocean of mud is spewing forth an endless tide of demons. She scours the Earth clean of all human life and corrupts all else within three days while all sentients corrupted by her mud return to her womb to be re-assimilated and born again in some form or another.

It's a complete re-genesis of all of the planet's life, your majesty. Humans, Vampires, Heroic Spirits, Counter-Guardians and even Gods fall under her primordial authority. Eventually, even Gaia herself will be overwritten by the instinctual rage of Tiamat."

All supernatural beings flinched at the mention of Tiamat. They all knew on an existential level who the mother of all life was and what her re-awakening meant for them. While the death of humans certainly sounded appealing, they all had grown a level of individualism over their long life and noway wanted to lose themselves to what might happen if they were slaughtered or became demons.

Still, a being that had supreme authority over even the Gods...how could you fight against something like her?

Artoria didn't know of Tiamat but Zelretch gave enough exposition for her to clearly understand that they were currently WAY out of a Primordial Goddess's league. Thoughts aside on when Zelretch would have came forth with this information on his own, she needed to prepare now more than ever.

"Is there any way for us to win?" she asked, sounding almost more like a question for anyone instead of just Zelretch.

"There are two valid plans but one is further ahead of our time then we have the luxury to afford in most cases while the other had been the main focus of study for the 338,923 Zelretchs before me until they were annihilated. If I fail in this timeline, it will be destroyed and I will take my knowledge to the other parallel Zelretchs before fading away as a weakness in the 2nd True Magic is that though the master can connect with their infinite other selves, should their original world be destroyed then they would as well."

"This world IS my original world," he punctuated with a slam of his cane's end on the carpet. "And I'll be damned a million times to a yaoi dimension before I fail like my parallels did. I've learned everything I could from the others and an infinite more are learning everything they can from me. This is my one and only chance."

The man showed a cold anger in his expressions that none had seen before and many in parallel worlds would say the same thing everyone was thinking: an angry Zelretch was scarier than a bored Zelretch.

He took a second to regain his calm mind before speaking again.

"As for the other way it is possible to get an advantage, well...we will need to unify the numerous most powerful supernatural factions on this planet to have a chance of having a chance. Harry Potter, raised as a mage knight under the tutelage of Camelot, has shown in other worlds to have the best chance as fate has a way of working to his long term advantage..to a reasonable extent. More will be explained on that later.

Basically, we need more firepower. A LOT. MORE. We need a trump card that doesn't follow Gaia's rules like we all have to do, something that isn't part of the original system, and Harry Potter possesses a unique aspect in his existence that gives him the greatest chance of succeeding out of all of us, even if that chance is around 0.01 percent. It's a million times higher than any of ours."

He looked the king in the eyes and only Morgana and several of the older beings finally understood Zelretch's meaning of trump card.

"We need to get TYPEs ORT and MOON on our sides."