Chapter 29: Outside Alone.
"... And that is my story, up to my arrival in this place." The man finished, after a long, and surprisingly intimate retelling of his life, most of which Georgia already knew. "Is there anything else you wish to know?"
"Yes, what is the hell is this place, and have you seen two alternate versions of me here recently?" Georgia spluttered, her mind was overeager for answers.
"I have not seen anything my dear, this place has no light, no darkness, no gravity, and no direction, plus we are the only living entities existing within it. But I sense that like me you are merely a mental projection, your body resides within the world you came from." The man said. "As for this place more specifically, to call it hell is pretty accurate. This is the void between worlds, an infinite realm of nothingness that binds all reality together."
"Huh?" Georgia gawked. "I didn't understand any of that."
"Imagine a sphere, with billions of smaller spheres covering the shell, all touching the bigger sphere, but not each other." The voice said, and her imagination was strong enough to imagine what he was describing. "The void, the place where we are now, is the big sphere, and every known reality, including its many variations, are the smaller spheres around it."
"I just about understand that, but why can't I see or feel anything?" she immediately asked.
"The void is nothingness made real. There is no light, no dark, no up, no down, no life whatsoever, except us at this present time, though even the concept of the present is not certain here." The voice explained. "Speaking of present, why have you come here?"
"Two bitches fucked with me, and I want payback!" she said through gritted teeth. "Care to point out where I can find Lauren Shepard and Zoe Shepard's realities, I have unfinished business with both."
"Ah, so you're Georgia Shepard, nice to meet you," the man said brightly. "It's nice to meet the person who saved me a lot of work in repairing her damage."
"What?" Georgia asked.
"One of those alternate versions of you, I'm not sure which, caused considerable damage to multiple realities, and I must take some responsibility for giving her the opportunity." He sighed. "But with your help, I have sealed most of the cracks, and have contained one of them in their reality."
"Cracks?" she asked, perplexed by the use of the word. "And how the hell have I helped?"
Suddenly vivid white lines appeared all around her, criss-crossing what must have been the walls of the void, though that idea confused her even more. As the light faded, she caught a glimpse of the bearded figure before her, and her disbelief reached an all-time high.
"Can I enter their worlds to mess with them like they did with me?" Georgia asked.
"If you keep your revenge to their individual realities, I have almost fixed the damage I was responsible for." The man said quickly. "The damage that one of them has done is taking a long time to undo, and I hope that your plan takes this into account."
"Oh I know exactly how to get some payback with them," she chuckled. "Where is Zoe's reality?"
"Hold on," he smiled, before he flicked his wrist and she hurtled toward one of the cracks and into a familiar, yet alien, reality.
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She immediately focused on cloaking her presence, before beginning her work. She knew the basics of Zoe's history with the Leviathan's power.
"Alright then Zoe, time to put right what you let Lauren corrupt!" Georgia said through gritted teeth.
She extended her influence, seeing how Zoe ruled her reality, and quickly thought of a plan to stop the other Shepard from interfering in this reality. Georgia travelled back through this reality's timeline, to just before Lauren visited.
"Who are you?" Zoe asked, her Reaper-human body showing an intrigued expression.
"I'm you, from another reality, and I need you to listen to me," Georgia said quickly. "There's another version of us out there that's evil, pure evil, and I need you to hide until I take care of them."
"Hide? I'm a goddess, and…" Zoe began, but she cut in.
"I know, I'll hide you from her gaze and take your place," Georgia said quickly, sensing Lauren approaching. "Just hide for a while, so I can take your place and protect you from being corrupted."
"I don't understand anything you've just said, but I'm not in a position to distrust you," Zoe sighed.
"I promise this is for the greater good," Georgia said, and Zoe quickly cloaked herself.
'Clearly she is an infiltrator by profession.' Georgia thought.
"Hello stranger," Lauren smiled brightly, appearing behind Georgia.
"Hi, who are you?" Georgia said, pretending to be naïve.
"I'm like you, but from a very different reality," Lauren grinned.
"Why are you here?"
"I'm offering you the chance to visit other realities beyond your own," Lauren encouraged. "You're a goddess ruling over a galaxy at peace, and there are realities out there that are not as stable as yours, together we can put them right."
"What do you mean 'put them right'? If there are 'alternate' realities, who's to say that they aren't supposed to be 'lost'?" Georgia asked, wondering if Lauren was the one who was lost in her own power.
"Wow you're naïve," Lauren laughed loudly. "Come with me."
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She played along as Lauren delighted in showing some of the realities she had changed, even showing what would have happened if she had not intervened. All Georgia could think about was how she and the man in the void would undo this interference, and at what point she would stop Lauren once and for all. As they moved on to the next, Georgia reached out to the man in the void, and notified him of another reality that had been altered.
"But it's not just realities beyond ours that I have made better, I've improved some of the other Shepards, both male and female." Lauren said proudly.
"There are male Shepards?" Georgia asked.
"Yeah, I found it hilarious at first, but there aren't many of them compared to female Shepards from what I've seen." Lauren sniggered. "Take a look at this Shepard, and see how I've fulfilled his wildest desires."
Georgia glimpsed into the reality and felt a knot in her gut from what she saw. This Shepard, known as John Shepard, was a fair leader like her, but he had chosen to control the Reapers.
"I promised that he'd survive the crucible and be rewarded in ways he couldn't imagine," Lauren explained. "Everything he ever wanted has happened; the Batarians are extinct, the Reapers are his to control, and the people of his galaxy worship the one true goddess, me."
"What else did you do?" she asked, though the answer was obvious.
"Corrupted him." Lauren laughed, delighting in how she had corrupted this reality. "He doesn't realise how far he's fallen from the 'righteous' path, its exquisite to see a good man gone bad."
"And his galaxy let him get away with this?" Georgia asked in disbelief.
"They owe him everything," Lauren said simply. "Plus I may have had a little influence on how people have viewed his actions. The extermination of the Batarians? A neccessary act to ensure galactic stability. The Reapers being under this Shepard's control? A means of ensuring galactic peace."
"I thought you didn't like peace?" She asked.
"I hated the peace in my reality, it was just too... boring for me." Lauren said quickly.
"Is he a god like us?" Georgia asked.
"Ha! No! I stole the Leviathan's power from his reality, and in some others I simply destroyed it." Lauren laughed. "When he dies, the galaxy will mourn a hero who did 'what was needed'."
"What else have you done to these other realities?"
"bestowed gifts upon those I deemed worthy, though I did not bless that many." Lauren said slowly. "I won't explain it, but it got boring after a while, so I went back to playing with realities by myself."
"How many realities have you 'toyed' with?"
"A fair few, not just other Shepard realities, but many that are beyond your narrow imagination." Lauren said nonchalantly. "But come with me, I've found one that'll be fun for both of us to play with."
"Who says I want to help you?" Georgia said defiantly. "Maybe I've seen all I need, and I choose to return to where I belong."
"Don't worry, you'll return home afterward, I just want to show you what you can do with this power," Lauren said excitedly. "There's a reason we have it after all."
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"What do you think of this reality?" Lauren asked as they floated on the edge of a galaxy.
"Seems familiar, yet alien." Georgia admitted.
"That's because it's another alternate reality of ours," Lauren explained. "We're about two years after the Battle over Earth, and this version of us chose to merge organics and synthetics."
"What did you choose?"
"To control the Reapers, worked in my favour as I finally got my revenge on those four-eyed Batarian assholes," Lauren grinned.
"You committed genocide?" Georgia said disgusted.
"Yep, and not just in my reality as I've shown you." Lauren smiled with no hint of remorse. "In my reality I went a stage further. There are no Batarians, Vorcha or Yahg, and no one can complain because everything turned out for the better."
"I chose destroy, and my galaxy is at peace." Georgia said, having memorised what Zoe's reality was like. "And I did it without genocide or bloodshed."
"That was a weak-willed choice, and that is why you're here, to learn that discipline and order are essential." Lauren stated. "You need to stop taking the cowardly pacifistic approach."
She watched as Lauren lured the Protheans out of hiding, and then helped them attack each home-world simultaneously.
"Could you throw that out of this reality, it really doesn't belong." Lauren said nonchalantly. "Plus, it's about time you got your hands dirty."
Georgia played along, throwing the object wrapped in Lauren's power out of the reality, only to see her evil alternate pull it back.
"What was the point of that?" she asked.
"Relax, I ensured several decades passed for it, while only a few seconds passed here," Lauren smiled. "And we're only just beginning."
Georgia's gut sank as it dawned on her; this was her reality, and she had just thrown John III from Miranda's arms into the Halo reality. Her anger raged to the surface, yet she felt powerless to attack Lauren. She had fallen into a trap, and now had to endure torture as Lauren fucked with her reality before her eyes.
