Disclaimer Harry Potter and all its characters belong to J.K. Rowling
Chapter 12 – Warped
Harry felt strangely numb as he gazed upon the gory mess clutched in his newly clawed hand, all the while three planet-sized gods continue to have a discussion that went way over his head. Despite their voices ringing out like echoing thunder, Harry could not pull his gaze away from his hand and the very important part of him that was clutched in it. With his much fleshier hand that was still torn up but human-looking he ran the remnants of his fingertips across the clutched aspect of himself and felt a swirling sense of loss and confusion overtake him. The little mix of concept and viscera throbbed strangely, painfully, in his clawed fingers and Harry felt a burning pain around the hole he had retrieved it through.
What have I done, nononononono, this was a mistake put it back, put it back! With panic seeping into his thoughts Harry began trying to shove the viscera back into his chest, spurts of sanguine fluid rushing out every time he jammed his new clawed arm in the self-made wound. But despite his effort, the part of him would not attach again and in a terrifying haze, Harry began to try and paw his chest open with his other hand hoping that a larger hole might make it easier. His single-minded focus to undo what he had done as an alien sensation of fear gripped his mind left him ignorant to the strange nature of his body, mainly his strangely putty-like ribs that he was tugging upon.
"Well, this is not going well, it seems the undead thing has gone and broken itself, not only that but it has become untethered and soon will unravel."
"Well, that won't do, this has to be what our sweet sibling wished but what's the message here… haha how strange our dear brother is to send such obscure missives."
"Hush, sister did he do what I think he did."
"… yes, the strange undead creature was so removed from itself that it was able to carve off a piece of its being. Only the greatest of my chosen is capable of such a feat and normally they can only do peripheral aspects not… central ones."
"Important is the word you are looking for sister… do we help it dear brother you are better at things like this."
"… That depends on you oh precious sibling you are the one fond of the little undead…should you desire the continuation of this distraction let us make it so, but we need to be quick."
"He is right our combined presences and in such honest forms will no doubt lay waste to this existence soon, let us be done with the boy… let us uncork this message in a bottle."
Harry was ignorant to the discussion being carried out by the three celestial titans above him, his panic-stricken mind resolved only to trying to pull back his ribcage with one arm while the other rummaged about his guts, but frighteningly he found his fingers had somehow fused to the bones. Now Harry was struggling on the floor as his arm became trapped by his exposed ribs which had gained a sticky glue-like consistency that entrapped his tugging limb. It was with a thunderclap of noise followed by a far more deafening silence that his panic refocused on the sky again and Harry found three gods staring at him with unconcealed apathy.
Harry tried to speak to them but found the teeth in his mouth had fused, a sensation made all the more awkward by his lips moving with an exaggerated force that revealed his sealed orifice in all its horrific glory. With an alien understanding of what was happening Harry once again tore his clawed hand from his chest and clutching his humanity tightly proceeded to punch his fused teeth with all his strength. A swift crack that sounded like the shattering of wood oddly enough, had his teeth breaking, Harry now had a hole in his sealed mouth that he quickly hooked his thumb in and with a violent jerk pried his mouth apart. His Fused teeth shattered at the jerking force slashing his distended lip to tatters but now he could speak again.
"Hel-pthth arghhhhhh!" Harry's plea was cut off as his tongue elongated and dragged across a far too sharp tooth slashing it down the centre and sending the two halves to droop out of his mouth in a violently absurd fashion. All the while Harry felt frustrated at his bodies need to not cooperate with him, regret for removing his humanity growing by the second. Well, at least it doesn't hurt anymore… well as much. With strain Harry lifted his head to see if the gods were still there, he was… happy to see that they still were, even if checking did cause his vertebrae to rapidly fuse locking his head skyward.
"This is pitiful… Just get the message and let us depart" Harry watched as Tzazulquizha expanded her cloudy form, space being eaten at by her presence and wisps of something that made his eyes bubble leak out from the voids left behind. Her disdain was enough to corrode reality around her.
"Well, I must agree that I don't exactly find this as amusing it seems the little undead is unable to hold itself together anymore, what a shame but then again it chose to unmake itself," Obarhurr spoke its presence seeming to dim and with it all the stars in the sky.
Harry would have started to panic as he felt the world around him unravel and his own body begins to warp further, his legs the most recent casualties one fusing to the rock while the other seemed to be trying to detach itself and walk away… very inconsiderate of it, Harry thought to himself. See Harry would have panicked as this was quite the stressful situation but it's amazing how hard it is to panic when a terrifying celestial titan fabricated from a gnawing abyss seems to be almost… rooting for him?
"I would kindly ask the both of you to stem the irritations you feel obliged to utter can you not see that the best bit is upon us." Lodium rounded on his siblings and once again seemed to tower over the both of them, a feat made all the more terrifying considering the relative size of the other two. "Come now little thing, focus on what you are feeling not on what's happening. This reality is but a quickly fading dream and you are but a stray idea, untethered and unravelling. You know what to do… feel it!" The sensation of Lodiums howls caused one of Harrys eyes to pop and dribble down his face but his advice had the little dead boy once again try to mould his magic as an insane idea had bloomed in his mind most painfully.
With a desperate tug, Harry yanked his arm off his rib cage… sadly he only freed everything below the elbow as the rest remain firmly stuck, but that would have to do. Using his remaining solid clawed arm Harry tore his lips away from his face, their strangely drooping shape concealing his forcefully made mouth. They came off like pieces of playdough, the noise would have been comical had Harry not felt what he was pretty sure was an ear and part of his scalp droop onto his already lilting shoulder. His mouth revealed Harry hurriedly slammed his humanity into his open mouth and bit down, the reaction was almost instantaneous. That numb feeling faded and Harry felt a lot more of everything… which was not inherently a good thing. It was a good thing his lungs were wrecked or that would have been quite a pained bellow as the sensation of his twisted nervous system lit up in a single instant drowning him in alien sensations and excruciating stimulus. With the hollow and numb feeling gone Harry could once again do the one thing that might be able to save him.
Magic.
With an idea fabricated on madness and the imagination of a very warped child Harry moulded his magic to his amputated arm, all in an insane attempt to use his gift to fabricate a new limb. With ridiculous ease that almost seemed too simple, Harry watched a strange amalgamation of stone and flesh weave themselves together into a patchwork arm that was most assuredly out of proportion to the rest of his body but was perfect for what he had in mind. Using both his now much more solid arms Harry yanked his head forward, ignoring the popping noise his fused vertebrae made, from its skyward position and sent the rest of his liquid eyes spilling across the floor. It appeared that Harry was not the only one changing, the presence of three gods seemed to be too much for the world as its landscape was being unmade and decimated as invisible waves pulled the earth apart and disintegrated the freshly made floating chunks of the deteriorating planet.
"Stop looking at the floating mud and focus on your unravelling existence!" Lodium bellowed, his annoyance sending every shadow in Harry's line of sight into a writhing tendril of solid black rage.
Sorry! Harry scampered back to the madness he was calling a plan as he began to physically mould his gift again, his two vastly different arms pulling up the flattened puddle of his gift and shaping it. Harry was rapidly chewing on his removed humanity, his misshapen and razor-sharp teeth working wonders on the absolute decimation of it, but that was exactly what Harry was counting on. Meanwhile, Harry had nearly the entirety of his magic, his gift, his whatever the hell he was moulded in front of him. Now was the part completely dependent on his mad idea working, the strange thing was Harry had absolute faith that it would work because after all there was a big mind-warping, planet-destroying god egging him on.
With his magic moulded before him Harry closed his eyes… eye, and focused within again, he followed his magic to his centre and there he found that place from which he tore out his humanity, it was like looking at a puzzle with a very obvious missing piece. Without that piece, it just wasn't a whole picture, and it was there that Harry focused. He zeroed in on that mutilated section where his humanity once resided and then he looked beyond it. With his sight concealed Harry saw more than he ever had before, he saw the world for the many parts that defined it, saw air for a thousand ideas that made it exist and with hesitance Harry looked upon himself and felt horror settle upon his shoulders as his back stiffened. His body was a bunch of unbound things, skin, flesh, bone, and blood but it wasn't a body, it wasn't an organism it was just a mass of protein and fats. Looking directly in front of his unravelling self, Harry saw all his magic in the moulded shape he had required two arms to make. It was a rough vague outline of a human shape, a vessel of pure magic in a comfortable familiar form to hold his soul and stop it from being destroyed as his self unravelled.
Harry felt his bodies jaw slip off his head and splat into the ground where it became like porcelain and cracked, if that wasn't a cue to jump ship nothing was. The sensation of his soul, of himself, moving through his own existence, his own vessel was without a shadow of any doubt the most mind-boggling thing he had to endure. He was almost thankful that he had met the Unborn or the absolute strangeness of what he was doing right now would have surely distracted him from his plan. But Harry did not get distracted by the sensation of swimming through himself, rather he redoubled his efforts to get it over with sooner. So, he swam, he clawed, he scuttled up from his centre, he phased and climbed up his body following the path of least resistance until he reached his mind where he saw his brain turning into some type of pink fleshy soup while the bone of his skull seemed to become some kind of translucent substance. But it was there on his forehead, above his eyes that he saw a gnarled mark, a strange malformed patchwork of flesh and bone seal made to cover some type of hole.
The thing in the black pool! That's where it came from… no wonder it itched, FOCUS! Harry wasted no more time as he bore witness to the last remnants of his physical brain turn to mush and lunged at the poorly sealed hole leading out of his quickly failing self and began to claw it open, but as he struggled to open it, he knew that he was rapidly losing time and his chances of this succeeding were fading with each instant that he remained trapped.
What I wouldn't give for a Command right now! Harry aggressively contemplated, his furious struggled finally led to an opening that allowed him to see outside of his rapidly deteriorating vessel. He saw his magic moulded into a vessel and began squeezing through the hole reaching for his literal salvation. His form, his self was not a body anymore, but a combination of thoughts and ideas held together by sheer will and intent, but if Harry didn't escape his body he would warp and unravel along with it, which is why when he realised that he couldn't reach his magical lifeline Harry didn't let himself feel despair. He was Harry Potter, it took a group of five grown men just to kill him, hell he didn't even stay dead! He woke up on an alien beach and killed a monster in a pool of unearthly inky black. He opened The Gates of Eternity and walked a path no human ever had, he conversed with gods who cracked planets in half. He was Harry Potter, he didn't feel despair watching his hope die again, he just got mad… and when Harry got mad… he got things done.
'Pull!' Harry commanded with all his might and to say he was pleased with the results would be an understatement. Harry felt his deteriorating body get yanked through the air and into his magical vessels clutching grip, chunks of the earth also being caught in the magical effect and launched off. Its grasp was vice-like as it held his unravelling form by his exposed skull, even as the rest of Harry's body turned into a shapeshifting puddle that drooled from his now open and exposed chest.
Harry smiled, well he projected the concept of smiling he supposed, I am losing my mind, now firmly able to reach his magic vessel he began to fill it with his essence, his soul. But time was not on his side and so in an act that was most assuredly, questionable Harry issued another Command, a new favourite of his.
'Rend!'
His Command given Harry's new vessel moulded by his unravelling body clawed one of its hands and lanced it through his own transforming throat, decapitating his old body and allowing the rest of his form to finish its unmaking in a puddle on the floor. Harry let his projected concept of smiling grow as he relaxed and let his essence transfer over into his new body while he hugged his warped skull to his new form's chest. So as the world was unmade and his body, his human body, turned into a puddle of madness Harry merely basked in his victory beneath the no longer apathetic gazes of three gods. His certainty in his being once again restored despite the removal of his humanity and maiming of his very self. Harry was Harry, and he let those thoughts comfort him even as the rotting alien world fell to ruin, and he drifted into the expanse of space.
I did it… I am.
…
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Harry woke up, not confused, sore, stressed, or afraid but rather he woke up feeling wonderfully light and clear-headed. Sitting up Harry looked around seeing not with eyes but using his magical vessel to connect to the world around him allowing his mind to grasp the concepts that surrounded him. He seemed to be in space, or a type of space that was void of all other concepts and he was laying on the surface of an ocean of oblivion. It was a startling if not captivating disparity to behold two deviating concepts of zero in a sense. Being surrounded by zero though made Harry all the more prominent, a splotch of obnoxious colour on a blank canvas, a lone huma- … thing…what exactly am I now?
"Oh, oh I can answer that one!" A familiar voice beckoned off to Harry's… he wanted to say right but honestly his sense of direction was non-existent wherever he was. Wherever the voice came from Harry was just happy to hear it, it was a voice that filled his mind with the images of buzzing air and metallic clicks to a symphony of whirring belts.
"Tzazulquizha!" Harry projected her name in the form of a Command without meaning to and fell on his butt in surprise at the starburst of concepts that exploded around him, her litany of titles and the reach of her power, the dominion she held over so many concepts floating around in this space devoid of anything filling its emptiness like stars with their majesty. All of them but the result of only one of her numerous names and he didn't even know how many she had.
"Hahaha oh careful little one, it would not do for you to damage that vessel you worked so hard on," Tzazulquizha spoke her voice like a warm engine engulfing him in comfort as she helped him back to her feet. To say Harry was a little shocked by this strange change in her attitude would be a grievous understatement. He was shocked so much so that when she stood him back up on the surface of the ocean of oblivion, he merely stared at her his form petrified and unsure how to react.
"Oh dear, it seems you broke him, sister." Another familiar voice chimed up, this time it was the voice of Obarhurr, and Harry was grateful the calmer of the three had arrived. Harry was so grateful he accidentally spoke again and once more his vocalisation came out as a Command.
"Obarhurr! Greeting!" Harrys Commands fired out of his form and once again more concepts scattered about the void surrounding them filling it with their essence like beautiful jewels. While the concepts produced by Tzazulquizha's name were bright and full of energy making unique noises and lights, Obarhurr's seemed to be more stationary and orbit around themselves giving soft thrums that dazzled hypnotically. However, Harrys greeting which was also projected as a Command soared off and engulfed Obarhurr, surrounding their being and projecting onto them Harry's happiness to see them again.
"Haha, well this is wonderful I am happy to see you as well little one, Harry if I recall correctly… I must say you had me worried for a second back there, but it was Lodium of all beings who had me calm down and watch and let me just say, I am very glad I did." It happily announced its voice like the sound of wind through tall grass and rain softly hitting stone.
"Wh-"
"Upupup, careful with your commands little one you might do something unintentionally if you are not careful." Tzazulquizha had placed an appendage around the head of his new form projecting a concept akin to 'silence' around his being, preventing his inadvertent Command from being projected beyond his brand-new vessel. Harry instead chose to take this moment to get a better look at the two of them. Their new forms were startlingly easy for him to understand and that in and of itself was utterly baffling to him.
Obarhurr still retained a form similar to the one that had made Harry's brain shut down multiple times within the same instant just to comprehend it, but it was like it lacked… depth. It was simpler somehow, more basic like Obarhurr had just made a bunch of shapes and stuffed their personality into it rather than being in their true form. Or the form true to that name at least. For example, it only had two floating arms and they had human hands, well 'humanish', one too many knuckles.
"Oh, are you looking at me little Harry?" Obarhurr question leaning over so their large pyramid-like head made of golden scales was eye level with Harry's new vessel. "Are you confused by my form, I tried to make it like the one you saw before but I'm not too good with simple stuff like this. Am I still recognizable?" It questioned lightly, Harry saw soothing steam leaving the earth and tiny bubbles rise out of the depths as their voice somehow naturally soothed him.
"Brother you are being too pushy." Tzazulquizha warned lightly inserting her form between Obarhurr and Harry, "he can't talk yet, but he obviously recognizes you, he projected your name remember. So just wait until that damn bug gets back and then we can all take the time to get him used to what he is, ok." Tzazulquizha ordered lightly, her sibling quick to surrender, Harry found the emotions swirling around the two utterly adorable. One was abashed at their own excitement while the other was acting stern but was also very excited. Harry's admiration of the two siblings interacting did not go unnoticed and very suddenly Obarhurr had shrunk down and was floating just in front of the small being that was now Harry Potter.
"Oh, oh he finds us cute! Can I embrace him?" Obarhurr pleaded to their sister, its voice laced with excitement and eagerness.
"No… not until I do!" At that proclamation Tzazulquizha hurled herself bodily at Harry and impacted into his forms new frame, but rather than gas and energy Harry felt skin and clothes. "Like it? I asked the annoying bug for the specs on a human so I could be in a more comfortable frame for you. Do you like it? I'm calling this form Zaz, needs a simpler name for the primitive organic vocal cords. But don't be fooled this body is one hundred percent synthetic perfection." Tzazulquizha, or rather Zaz Harry supposed, proclaimed with pride as she presented her noticeably human female form. Her breasts rested solidly on Harry's head and felt heavy, she seemed to be dressed in a blouse and skirt from what Harry could perceive but she was tall Harry knew that from basically being forced into her lap. The absurdity of being hugged by the god who he had watched crack a planet in half was a little too much for Harry, so he decided to approach this cautiously and just let her do whatever she wished.
"The term you are looking for Sister is one hundred percent organic plagiarism. But I shouldn't be surprised by your need to replicate the superior nature of organic life. After all, how else will you match me." A deep booming voice echoed throughout the void littered with the gods' concepts and Harry watched in awe as a form dragged itself out of the ocean of oblivion to stand before the three of them. "Hello little one, do you remember me." The entity spoke and of all the three before him, Harry felt he knew this one best.
"Lodium! Lodium!" Harry felt compelled to wave at him and was shocked when his Commands exploded out of his vessel and past the shroud of silence Zaz had placed around his new container. The two Commands rocketed forward one launching up to explode like a firework and scatter in the void like the other concepts. The other pounced upon Lodium and skittered around him like a squirrel before he caught it in a tendril and tossed it into the air, before catching it in one pair of his arms in a sincere hug. The Command seemed to seep into Lodium's chest area and Harry just knew he was smiling.
"I see you do remember me little one, this makes me happier than you could imagine," Lodium informed Harry, his voice a low rumbling like a growl of an utterly massive predator, but it projected onto Harry the strangest sensation of soft fur and tight embraces. Harry like those feelings, he liked them a lot. Lodium had changed his form by far the least of the three, he was now just about bigger than any adult human, but his shape was identical to his previous one, but like Obarhurr he seemed to be missing depth, unlike Obarhurr his form was by no means as simple and Harry found himself captivated by the strange combination of physical shadows and chitinous appendages.
"No fair! He still remembers organic stuff so of course you and he are going to get along better." Zaz complained loudly pulling Harry tightly to her human-shaped body, her squishy form encompassing him in a strangely cold hug.
"You wish to complain about not fair! You stole from me his first hug, a slight I will not be forgetting anytime soon wicked sister." Obarhurr groused its floating arms crossed as they glared at their sibling with barely concealed ire. It seems Obarhurr was taking this very personally if the mental images of erupting volcanoes were any indication.
"Will the both of you please cease you might give the little one the correct impression that we are a pack of wildly immature beings who pretend to be gods." Lodium lectured as his form leaned down until he was closer to Harry's height, doing a little to alleviate Harrys need to gaze up at the tall being. "Now young one I suppose that you are a little confused, no doubt, you have been through a lot." Lodium enquired its voice somehow both bestial but regal and refined.
Unsure of how to communicate safely Harry merely settled for nodding his head vigorously, Zaz's breasts shaking on the top of his head as he did so. Her arms still refused to let him go and it seemed she had joined Obarhurr in his glaring, so he didn't think she minded.
"I thought as much, well then I will simply recap and if you need clarification just move your 'arms' up and down and I will elaborate, understood?" Harry nodded to his instructions this time giving a thumbs up to accompany his much more subdued nodding.
"Right, feel free to join in you two!" Lodium barked at his two siblings who seemed to be having a silent argument above Harry's head. Lodium getting no response merely sighed and proceeded with his explanation. "Now let me begin with saying that we are now positive that you were a message sent to us by a fragment of our lost sibling, it seems that due to the unnaturalness of not only your previous life but the extremes of your death, that he was able to pick you out and transport you to his favoured throne world. A world that even the three of us, with all our godly power, have been unable to locate despite our best efforts." Lodium explained his multiple arms performing gestures here and there while tendrils of shadows seemed to perform body movements like shrugs in the background.
"The best we have been able to manage to our growing frustrations is appearing upon worlds his fragments have devastated and left scarred in their wake." Obarhurr continued its form now crouched next to Harry their lower half still obscured by a skirt, but it had its arms spread as if asking for a hug. Harry excited that someone else wanted to hug him stumbled over much to the silent distress of Zaz and crawled into Obarhurr's lap who was quick to hug him and nuzzle the top of his form's head with their 'chin'. Harry felt that Obarhurr was much harder to the touch but strangely not as cold, although his frame felt rough to the touch even his skirt, which as it turned out was not fabric.
"Nooo… come back," Zaz pouted her arms beckoning Harry back over to her frame. Harry was confused as to the sudden desire between the two to shower him with affection, but he would be lying if he said he wasn't enjoying it slightly. They're a bit like Roselyn, Harry thought holding out a hand for Zaz to hold while he sat in Obarhurr's lap.
"Sister, don't stress the boy out, the both of you can take turns with your affection," Lodium instructed, getting a pout in reply and an obvious squeeze to Harry's hand which she grasped firmly. Loidum's response was merely a petulant role of his eight glowing white eyes and a sound akin to a chuff that had the still ocean around them ripple. "Right, anyway that is why when you appeared we thought you no more than some type of wretched undead spawned by the rotting corpse of the planet we were on… We were right about the undead part of course but it appears you were more sacred than wretched." Lodium mused more to himself than Harry, his frame seeming to shrug slightly as his eight eyes gazed down to the sea they sat upon.
"So, when we listened to your story and got confirmation that you had truly been to Ya'vana, well… that changed things you see, no longer where you are just a happy distraction for Obarhurr to focus on instead of their grief, but you became a clue and far more selfishly a desperate connection to our lost sibling." Lodium continued his voice becoming more fraught with emotion as he detailed to Harry their previous encounter.
"You were the first form of communication we had received from him in a long… very long time," Zaz explained her voice sombre as she grasped Harry's hand and seemed intent on examining his new form.
"Which I will admit is the reason we became more… present, as the conversation proceeded, at first, I merely wished for the eradication of those damnable maggots to allow the rest of our consciousness to hear your story easier. But when I found out that my… troublesome, lost sibling had made his message some form of distorted quest law well…" Obarhurr lifted Harry out of their lap and place him upon the ocean surface, the still sea holding him easily. Obarhurr cupped Harry's face with its rough hands and gently ran its fingers down his featureless face.
"I will be the first to admit this to you little one, Harry… We siblings, that is us three Unborn are not exactly the most empathetic lot. We did not desire your pain and suffering but it was the quickest route through which we might obtain precious information on our dearest lost sibling and for that reason, we came before you in a form that would vaporize most life." Obarhurr explained, their voice was sombre but not apologetic, this was merely their way of explaining to Harry that they did not mean him harm out of any form of maliciousness. It was merely a side effect and one that to them was acceptable in the pursuit of their missing family. "I will say I am very glad you survived… I am overjoyed that you managed to survive little one."
"I too am ecstatic that you managed to pull through," Zaz proclaimed behind Harry her arms hugging his chest.
"As am I," Lodium exclaimed softly one of his hands resting lightly on top of Harry's head. Harry wasn't sure how to express himself in this regard, or how to even communicate it safely, so Harry settled for a slight nod of his head and resting his arms gently upon Zaz and Obarhurr's limbs. To his silent amazement when he touched them he felt a connection form that tugged ever so gently, like the waves he had felt on Ya,vana and just as soothing.
"Thank you. Now I suppose we are finally up to the part of the story that no doubt has you the most confused, yes?" Lodium continued, to Harry, his voice seemed somewhat teasing, images of swishing tails parading in Harry's mind. Harry practically nodded his form's new head off, he needed answers desperately to understand what had led to what in his mind was little more than a blur of pain, panic, and desperation. Those emotions pricking painful recent wounds wide open and leaving Harry with a deep ache. He needed to know what led to that pain, that agony, what was it that he did to himself, how did he pull out his humanity, what did that mean, why did it feel so wrong, why did doing it stop the pain? So many questions but he kept his curiosity contained as he did not wish to fire off another accidental Command.
"Haha, I can sense your curiosity little one, do not fret I will answer happily as I admit I was enraptured by your performance if only all undead could put on such a spectacle. I might keep a few more of them around." Lodium explained his eyes aglow with passion as they blazed with excitement his vision firmly locked onto Harry's new form.
"It's true, he was shushing us while he watched you put on quite the show," Obarhurr whispered loudly, their gaze locked onto Lodium as its only pair of floating arms encircled Harry's small shoulders.
"The last time I saw him so excited me and him had just thrown two universes into each other's path to let them wage an apocalyptic war of space-faring levels. Hehehehe, weak organics… so many casualties." Zaz trailed off and while Harry wasn't looking at her, he was positive that she was glowing with pride.
"Bedamned mechanical space shrimp, may they all rust and suffer in some hellish junkyard." Lodium hissed back at her in triumphant amusement his crown seeming to sharpen slightly as his form wavered ever so slightly, showing off more of his godly power, the waters around him becoming unsettled and fraught.
"Let us please focus sweet siblings, you can play war later, who knows I might join in," Obarhurr spoke up voice capturing their sibling's attention immediately and suddenly Harry's head was flooded with images of a giant sapient city alongside a titanic draconic behemoth crashing against some horrifying combination of jabbering flesh fused with sinful stone carvings that spoke of a world beset by a frenzied sleep.
"… you are correct dear sibling… I and our sister will just have to crush you later when you inevitably cheat, but for now, the little one deserves his answers, after all, he accomplished both a wonderful feat and a monumental task for us." Lodium explained his form settling, as did the sea of oblivion, he recentered his focus back to Harry who was now a little of kilter and trying to work out what a frenzied sleep was and why it had something to do with sheep.
"Now young Harry, little one, sweet messenger… you handled a confrontation with three beings of cosmic might far better than most, your form held up firmly against a calamitous level of strain that frankly speaking should have rent you apart like a fleshy masochistic training dummy." Lodium describe and while his voice was emotionless and seemingly devoid of inflection, Harry still found himself a little bit offended. "But sadly, despite a level of fortitude that easily qualifies as impressive you were but a simple mortal undead thing and quickly began feeling the consequences of three reality-warping presences attacking your existence. That was the pain Harry, that was why your soul screamed in agony… it was a good thing you were already dead and therefore spared a new death as the body I provided you suffered massive haemorrhaging and your brain developed several tumours that began to eat themselves…"
"Not to mention sections of your spine began to synthesize microscopic synthetic machines that started to rewire your fleshy gross body into a bootleg factory," Zaz interjected now lazily playing with her legs, Harry still not seeing with his eyes was able to get the rough idea that she was either examining her toes or trying yoga.
"Oh, and your beautiful hair was becoming the most interesting material, it was like a flux compound that allowed for the transition of fluids into other states of matter by supplying them with some type of impractical imaginary substance, it was very fun to look at… aside from the horrific frostbite it caused to your skin that said hair was connected to, but well like we said… simple undead things should not be before the three of us at that level of might." Obarhurr's explanation somehow elicited a physical memory that had Harry consciously scratching at his form's new surface even though he was devoid of skin and inside a shell fabricated from his own moulded magic.
"Cease!" Lodium roared his voice an implosion of noise that cut across any further explanation that may have afflicted Harry with memories of those agonising moments, the silence seeming to strip away the itch and shunt away the memories. "... yes, well despite all that little one, you seemed to only care about one of the many pains afflicting your self and that was the catastrophic damage that three different imposed realities were having on yourself. Your souls centre, the core of your very being was becoming a nexus of contradiction and warping beyond its ability to… stretch. This should have been the utter obliteration of you beyond any ability to reform or resurrect, but you surprised us… something that is no small feat I promise you my dear little one." As Lodium spoke those words Harry felt that bond thicken, its mysterious tug pulls gently at the three around him once more and the bleak void seemed all the more full of dancing concepts that glittered like the most wonderous of treasures. Zaz stepped forward and seemed to be looking at his chest as she lightly placed her strangely cold hand against his featureless face.
"What you accomplished little one startled and astounded us, for it was not something a mortal should be able to do… but it seems that our lost brother is not yet absent of his ability to surprise us-"
"That's apparent," Obarhurr cut in looking down at her from atop Harry's head, his interjection receiving a sneer in return.
"- but accomplish it you did and thus you found a way to relieve yourself of the pain afflicting your centre… by tearing out a core concept of your very being, you removed what made you human. Thus, with what you are irrevocably changed, and a void left that your soul was struggling to fill we thought you doomed all over again. After all what hope could you possibly have, a tortured child, now in possession of a warped existence have at possibly surviving such an accursed and deteriorating state?" Zaz explained her tone a slow drawl, not sad, but empathetic maybe.
"Then you went ahead and pulled off the impossible, you not only managed to mould your magic under the planet shaking presence of three gods who were redefining the laws of the universe in that instant but also forged a new arm that you then crafted an ENTIRE new body with! Then you went ahead and accomplished an act I would hesitantly call either extremely advanced necromancy or perhaps some kind of revolutionary reality manipulation as you severed yourself entirely from the only form you have ever known-
"An act that should have been impossible for one who has only ever been an organic being such as yourself," Lodium lectured, he too had at some point moved behind his sister but appeared to be looking for something as his frame was raised and his head swivelling above both Harrys and his siblings.
"- only to restructure your central concepts to allow you to move through an already pre forged soul conduit, that somehow existed within your body, and escape through the manipulation of your disembodied magic to forcefully decapitate your warped inhuman skull and escape the deterioration and collapse of your old forms warping," Obarhurr concluded his form was so excited he now floated above Harry comically as if gravity was different for him, his world upside down to Harrys as his limbs danced some insane limb waltz about his excited frame.
Harry sat there his brain wrapping around everything he had been told, the recap was dearly appreciated and for the first time since their explanation began Harry sat cross-legged and looked towards his own self-made hands. He didn't see skin, he didn't see flesh… he saw himself, he saw his soul somehow. He was not dead… he knew that feeling… which in and of itself was concerning, but what he was now confused him, he didn't rightly feel like anything, he simply… was.
I am.
"That's right! You are, there is no better way to describe you." Obarhurr spoke its voice belligerently cheerful as their limbs pulled away from an invisible ceiling to lazily orbit around Harry, Zaz ducking under their hovering frame when he went past.
"Ahhh, there it is! You two watch over the little one again I need to get him a present." With no more said Lodium once more crawled into the ocean of oblivion looking like some horrific burrowing lizard as the sea was forced to engulf his abyssal frame. Harry was stunned not at Lodium's mysterious disappearance but at what he said he was doing. He said he was going to retrieve a present for Harry, this set the small boy ablaze with excitement and wonder as he had never received a present before in his life… or his previous one for that matter.
"You need not spare any thoughts for what once was little one, you are new, you are you now, whatever ties you wish to keep to what you once were are up to you… why keep the ones that elicit such sorrow?" Obarhurr questioned his form floating so that he was practically laying before Harry his pyramid head being roughly eye level with his new forms head.
Harry wanted to answer honestly, he was really beginning to desire a conversation but the risk of firing a Command directly into Obarhurr was what halted him, instead, the small boy reached out to Obarhurr his hand resting lightly on the shimmering scales that coated his geometric head and Harry felt that connection tug again. Harry knew that these simple forms were for his benefit but part of him missed how much he was able to absorb from their other forms. With their new simplified forms, the most Harry could do was absorb what they said and the images they projected when they were feeling emotional. His hand glossed across the hundreds of small scales, each one seemed to pull lightly at his form and impart warmth in equal measure. The simplified form that Obarhurr made was still beautiful and Harry's new way of seeing did not detract from this in the slightest like a masterful sculpture imbue with the god's personality. It is less than the original but by no means still extremely gorgeous to behold.
"Do not lament little one, you are so small, so young, so new… You will grow, change, evolve… and I cannot wait to watch you do it." Zaz spoke up her human form quick to sit next to her sibling, her form lightly glowing to Harrys eyes as she tried to comfort him.
"I leave for but an instant and yet I return to such a sombre setting…" With a familiar stirring in the water, Harry was able to watch this time as Lodium swam beneath the surface, the water shielding his shape but not his presence. Lodium changed his size when he exited the water as the shadow that Harry witnessed beneath him was large enough to swallow an island. With a sudden jolt that had Harry nearly hop into Zaz's lap, Lodium erupted from that sea of nothingness and reared up in his near-human size.
"… Siblings please gather to me we have a duty to perform, and it is one I will see us perform right," Lodium spoke, his voice lined with a subtle hint of excitement as he concealed something in clawed grasp his large chitinous claws keeping whatever it as from his sight.
With quick ease Obarhurr glided over and took their place by Lodium's side, Zaz was a bit slower as she stopped to hug Harry's head to her chest again before hurrying over to take her spot to the right of Obarhurr. Harry was quick to rise to his feet, excitement making his form feel energised and bubbly, a quick glance at his hands showed that he actually was bubbling inside… neat.
With little to no fanfare, Lodium brought the concealed pair of arms around, whatever the gift was it remained concealed by the size of his clawed hands wrapped around it. "This gift for you is secondary to the one we, The Unborn, grant you first and foremost, dear little one," Lodium explained his chitinous claws remaining firmly locked and thus concealing whatever the mysterious gift was. "Now let us begin by say-" Lodium cut his sentence of as he turned to look at Zaz who was smiling brightly while playing with her hair, her eyes were locked on Harry and he saw no small amount of amusement simply emanating off of her. Lodium continue to stare his eight glowing eyes narrowing as his ire seemed to mount, Obarhurr was also smiling at this point but more out of a mischievous sense of amusement than Zaz'z light-hearted one.
"Ahem… Sister, your form," Obarhurr prodded his floating limbs scooping up her hairs to show them before her face.
"Oh right," the sound of crackling lightning accompanied by what Harry was pretty sure was the sound of a synthetic human body being flash vaporised was all the warning before his senses were assaulted by the much more potent vision of Tzazulquizha in her godlier form. Once again planet-sized infernal engines roared to life and enslaved stars were harvested by unnatural serfs, his mind became a slide show of the domain that The Nightmare Forged True claimed as hers.
The other two were quick to follow while their transformations were a lot less sudden and therefore had a far more suppressed effect as Harry was given slightly more time to acclimate to them before his mind became host to a murdered sun devoured by a ravenous abyssal beast and an act that could only be described as the eldritch crucifixion of a something horribly distorted. Once more Harry was before the three Gods but this time there was no annoying distortion of the image brought about by human eyes and therefore Harry had to contend with the fact that he gazed upon their chosen forms in all their glory.
"We Unborn do hereby grant onto you, precious little one, oh beloved chosen of our stray sibling, the proclamation of a title earned, of a title bestowed by one of ours. To you the former human known unto us as but a humble messenger and forlorn undead we do proclaim you Herald! Hear him and know, hear him and be made aware for his proclamation is ours and we speak only in tandem." Obarhurr declared and it was with finality only a god of his level could accomplish but the entire space around them bent as his decree became if Harry was correct in what he was seeing law. Obarhurr had just made it an irrefutable fact that he was the Herald, The Herald of The Unborn. Harry felt a sense of belonging well up in him and alongside it the strangest but most welcome sense of purpose he had ever felt in his entire existence.
"Congratulations little one, precious Herald, and now comes my gift, for it is with joy I present on to you what is both an honest gift and respected tribute to the chosen of my kin. May it remind you of how far you have come and what you may yet stride towards." With his speech given Lodium finally unfurled his chitinous to reveal his mystery gift to Harry. It left Harry speechless, he had no idea what he was expecting but it certainly wasn't this, so it was with shaking hands he lifted the present out of its godly presenter's grasp. Harry stared in a form of awe as he gazed upon the horrifically mystifying gift he held in his possession. There resting in his grip was the skull that had once sat upon his shoulders, bereft of the mandible with bone changed as to be translucent and crystalized in patches the eyes glowed with an aurora of concepts butchered and mashed together. Its forehead bled a black ichor that disappeared into the nasal cavity from a crack rune and the parietal section seemed to have caved in to grow some form of ethereal thing that emanated a soft humming, all around the skull ran conduits and circuits that conducted knowledge and power in equal measure.
The skull was beautiful, it was his, it was a gift and a beloved one at that, Harry looked upon the three sympathetic gods and hugged it tightly. He knew he shouldn't, but he could not resist so it was with firm focus and a calm drive that Harry spoke a Command.
"Gratitude."
The Command was butchered, and barely carried the concepts in any concrete form, but the message still came across, the pleased reaction of the three gods was all the proof, he needed that they got his meaning.
"You are welcome, Herald, it is the least I can do after all you are of us now, the Herald sent by our brother who delivered unto us a message that brought about joy so euphoric I swear I nearly lost control. So thank you little one, thankyou Herald, of our brother, the chosen of The Unborn." Lodium spoke and the purity of his message could not be more obvious to the small child for he had no need of falsities, he was a god and what he spoke was fact.
Harry stood there and for the first time that he could ever remember he knew he belonged, holding his own mutated, decapitated skull in a body forged of magic and desperation Harry belonged with three grieving alien gods standing in a void upon an ocean of oblivion while the essence of their being glittered about them all. Slowly Harry looked at the distorted and warped skull and with his sight compared his old head to his new hands… he was so different.
"Bereft of physical form, of flesh and bone, material and matter, but you are still you Herald, you who exists in this instant," Tzazulquizha spoke her voice once again an echoing thunder that elicited images and concepts. Harry smiled at her, grateful for the encouragement and Happy that his presence no longer annoyed her. Harry returned his head to his chest, the most distorted feeling of nostalgia washing over himself as he hugged it close to his centre.
"Now that we have finished on ceremony it falls to us once more to discuss with you dearest Herald about the message you delivered and what that means for you," Lodium informed his voice was the roar of combat and the hunger of ravenous beasts.
"Let me ask you, Herald… How would you like to 'live' again?" Obarhurr pried lightly, a sinister mischievous present in their voice.
Harry was beset by confusion at their question, not at the question itself of course, but rather what it entailed as Harry didn't exactly feel dead right now. With the three of them being in forms truer to themselves Harry felt a lot more comfortable communicating with a Command, he was sure that the effects if any could be handled by the three. So it was with a slight degree of anxiousness that Harry thought very carefully about the concepts he wanted to use and constructed his question carefully.
"Confusion. I Am. Alive."
"Oh, of course, you are, do not fret Herald this is not some vicious afterlife, and your soul is very much tethered to that wonderful body that you fabricated for yourself. What I was suggesting with my question is, how would you like to live on your world again." Obarhurr corrected their voice quick to lose its sinister edge as Harry found them quickly comforting Harry with their only pair of floating arms.
"What we propose is this little one, we desire you to aid us in the returning of our brother to us and through the deliverance of your message we now know that he will come to your world it is a certainty," Lodium explained his form still but his voice expressive as Harry detected a keen excitement that conjured images of blades and weapons primed to unleash a storm of violence.
"Well to be precise it is not our whole brother merely a fragment of his disassembled self, but our desire to have even a but a small fragment of him returned to us is simply too much to pass up," Tzazulquizha explained her voice informative, but Harry was able to pick up a trace of disappointment, no doubt about the fact that it was not her whole brother who would be showing up to his planet. Former planet I suppose.
"You are right to think that little one, sadly as you perished there your self already was distant from it but when you not only strode across alien plains and then warped your self beyond any sense of human comprehension… you would be alien on your own planet, an incompatible foreigner on a distant world, a mere unnatural aberration." Obarhurr was quick to explain picking up on Harry's thoughts, their explanation strangely sat well with Harry, when he thought of his world, he held no strong desire to go back there, no want to head home. Earth was Earth… it was just a place that he had resided at and to be honest it was not one with good memories.
"You are uncertain… this is fair, your world was cruel to you as it is to numerous others, life is cruel there and never equal. But what we are asking of you we do not ask lightly, you are so young, even younger than you were, and we ask only because it is you that has the best chance of success." Lodium growled, his frustrations showing and eliciting thoughts of a gleaming white blade etched with flowing carvings that was bathed in shimmering shades of countless being essence. That weapon infused itself in Harry's mind and quickly concepts began to emerge that tied themselves to such a horrifically pure weapon.
"You see child you are marked, our sibling chose you and this binds you to him, with this act it is you who can mark him and in doing so choose opposition for him, choose challenge." Obarhurr triumphantly invoked their voice taking on a competitive edge as they gestured viciously at nothing.
"If you went back to the world, which is already in his sights and will be visited by his fragment no matter what, you could decide the final confrontation… you would be the Herald of his arrival, he who shall ring the last bell, upon your word would our dearest sibling arrive and by your will would he be forced to fight in the last confrontation of your old world." Tzazulquizha declared her form flaring powerfully as she did, the event she was describing with such certainty that Harry could actually see echoes of the event to come.
"Oh, how amusing, sweet Herald returning to the world that doomed him and in turn Heralding its apocalypse… The Herald of the Apocalypse, yes, yes it has such a wonderful ring to it. Oh, dear little one how wonderful already you collect titles, and you are so young to boot, simply amazing." Obarhurr cooed as his hands lightly cupped the space around Harry like a funny feeling hug that had Harry feeling very warm and fuzzy inside.
"What a wonderful dear sibling you are, how right that it is perfect for the little one my dearest brother… so little Herald what say you, would you suffer our request, would you tread upon the world of your damnation as an unnatural thing to aid us in the retrieval of our lost sibling?" Tzazulquizha asked Harry her voiced indicated that she was asking honestly, they would not pry his thoughts senselessly, nor press for his aid. Sympathetic she was and her siblings were no different the three beings looked upon Harry curiously, the triad of gods who in his short time of knowing them had shown to Harry many things.
They had shown him hostility, they had shown him amusement, they had shown him loss, love, longing… They had shown him sympathy and they had shown him encouragement. Harry felt gratitude to the three as they had aided him with his plight, for selfish reasons perhaps but this did not detract from the fact that in the end, they had helped him. But it was not an easy request for Harry… his world was not a place of happiness nor was it one he desired to return to honestly. Flashes of his treatment under the Dursleys had the sea he stood upon beginning to bubble, his wrath warping the emptiness around him, distorting his place in the universe as his hate reared its wrathful head. Those thoughts all lead to the worst event of his life, the end of it and in that instant, the sea below him was no longer empty as it was filled with bubbling swirling eddies that violently clashed with each other. The three gods continued to stare patiently waiting for his answer all too happy to let Harry just feel and Harry was grateful for that.
The grateful feeling in combination with the memories of his death brought another memory to the forefront of his mind. Roselyn… the only person he ever remembered helping him, the only person who cared about him. She was kind to him when he was a stranger, she helped him when she knew only his name, she helped tend to his wound when he was no more than an injured child… and they killed her for it. Harry's rage did not settle, and his wrath began to stir the space about him as the ocean of oblivion churned violently. Flashes of her death, her suffering, the pain she endured for him, the death they inflicted upon her… the life they took from her. Harry let the rage flow freely at that moment for he was conflicted, on one side he knew for a fact that if the fragment appeared on Earth, the world would surely perish like the other two worlds he had been to.
But on the other hand, Roselyn had called the Earth her home and she did not deserve to have her world perish, not she who had shown him such tender care. But Harry could not simply let his hate go, it just wasn't in his nature… nor was doing wrong to those who did right by him. Like a bolt of lightning a thought struck Harry, he wanted to save Roselyn's world but not the world of the human filth who damned him. So, the solution was simple.
Remove them from the world.
When Harry focused back on his reality it was to see the three Unborn looking at him intently, with the ocean of oblivion all but stained in a vicious red and the void like heavens blurry and warped. Harry felt a sense of acceptance and let the concept of a smile form in his very being, it was a savage one. With a moment to ensure he was formulating his response correctly, Harry finally responded to the three waiting gods.
"I'LL DO IT!"
"Perfect."
A.N.
Sorry for the delay with this chapter, things happened, hope you enjoy the extra-long chapter to make up for the wait. I will try to have the next one out quicker and thank you to the wonderful war-gerbil777 for a wonderful review.