Her Royal Majesty Jennah, Queen of Kryta and Regent of Ascalon, sat on her lavishly appointed throne, this time wearing shoes, and beheld one of the countless ballrooms of Divinity's Reach as the famous, wealthy, and influential people of Kryta and beyond mingled, danced and with poise and grace demolished the food placed out on the tables all around the hall, covered in pristine white tablecloths.
Organizing such events was beyond trifle matters, but despite that, she usually avoided participating in them, as her time was better spent on matters of importance, like governance or diplomacy, or even spending time with her dear friend Logan. Who was standing not far from her dressed to impress, yet covered in resplendent armor, and glancing at her when he thought she wouldn't notice.
How silly…
Though Jennah had to admit, he looked mighty uncomfortable, and usually, she wouldn't have brought Logan with her, but with how the situation was developing and added to Anise's reports, she wanted a little more security than usual.
However, while Logan looked somewhat uncomfortable, it was nothing compared to the sheer discomfort that was radiating from one of her favorite subjects, both as a Queen and as a gossip material.
Young Taylor was standing amid several young men (and a few creepy older men) with amorous intentions, trying to chat her up. She was also wearing a dress that displayed her figure off to great effect, though her body language clearly showed that she wanted nothing more than to get one of her sinfully comfortable hoodies (Jennah treasured the one Taylor gifted to her, because indeed they were delightful) and leave this den of vipers.
It was rather gratifying to her, that even the mighty hero Taylor Vaporblade was not above and beyond being bribed. Granted, she had to do a bit of groveling (in private) so that the young woman would even think about participating in the event, but in the end, the rare books won the famous heroine over. Even if Jennah knew that Taylor was severely regretting agreeing to come to this event.
Looking at the young sorceress, Jennah had to admit that the girl filled out the royal blue off-the-shoulder dress really nicely, though the next time she would be sending over one of her hairstylists. It was a crime leaving that gorgeous and lush black hair without any styling.
But that was a thought for the future…
For now, she had other matters to deal with. She stealthily glanced at the spot she suspected Anise was hiding, then returned her considerable attention to the mingling people, all the while maintaining a polite smile, never giving away her true thoughts about most of the people present.
"Wonder where our troublemakers went?" Queen Jennah asked as she turned to the air next to her, that the next second was displaced by her trusted friend, Anise. "I thought you said they would act during the event?"
Anise gave her a wry smile and opened her mouth, but before even a word could leave her lips, the doors to the room they were in slammed open. Logan, who was standing behind her stoically, immediately drew his sword, ready to defend her, only to lower it when he realized the identity of the 'intruder'.
In the door stood Taylor, still in her elegant dress, holding up two people in her hands, holding them by their clothing. They were wearing all concealing black clothing and Jennah could see several hidden and not so hidden weapons and tools on their bodies. Thankfully, both of them were unconscious.
They spent an awkward minute staring at each other when Taylor blushed slightly and spoke up.
"I found these two during the event. Where do you want them… Your Highness?"
Jennah clearly ignored the tacked-on honorific, the silently giggling Anise, and couldn't help but despair a little.
'Shit, we forgot to tell Taylor about the plan…'
Rytlock ignored the biting cold of the Shiverpeaks with great practice as he climbed up on the slope of snow towards the cliff where he could see two of his subordinates lying low, obviously observing their target.
He slowly and with almost no sound growled out the password, and was happy to see that the two scouts only moved their ears to indicate they heard him. Sometimes, it was nice to have competent underlings…
He then continued his climb and joined them on the ledge of the cliff, hidden behind some rocks and a masterfully built-up snow wall that looked natural from the outside.
The two scouts said nothing, but one of them indicated towards the valley they were observing, then spoke up in a low voice.
"There they are, Tribune."
He nodded and took in the sight before him. It was one of the many valleys of the Shiverpeaks that hosted a range of plant life that allowed the hardy people of the norn to survive. This valley was no different, as it had one of those ramshackle-looking norn villages.
The only difference was the people in this village and what they were doing.
In the middle of the village was a statue of a very familiar woman, created from rough rocks and surrounded by norns and several charrs that were reported missing not so long ago, going through some kind of religious ceremony aimed towards the statue.
For a moment he gaped at the sight before him, before huffing and shaking his head. He poked the two scouts and turned around.
"Come on, let's get those wayward cubs back to their families…"
"Yes, Sir!" "Yes, Sir!"
As Rytlock descended from the cliff, he couldn't help but chuckle to himself.
"Wait until Taylor hears about this…"
The moment she arrived on the other side of the channel that connected Scion's avatar to the gigantic crystalline construct that Taylor saw when she first went to find the origin of the parahuman powers, she saw everything.
The crystalline construct pulsing erratically, folding in on itself, fracturing and reforming, yet from afar looking completely still, while letting out mysterious lights and sounds that no human had words for.
And as she began to immerse herself into the Mist, the other side of the gigantic construct came into sight. The seething ocean of darkness seemed to be clinging to the impossible material, yet also somehow surrounded her, reaching out to her with disgusting, oily tentacles dripping tar that contained echoes of screams with the clear intent to drown her in the darkness.
While the entity seemed to be immune to the eons of accumulated despair and anguish through sheer ignorance it seemed, Taylor was pretty aware of what the dark side of magic was capable of, so she would have been in real danger of being swallowed up by a tsunami of hatred, were it not for the shining light that immediately enveloped her the moment the ocean of darkness made its move.
And no matter how it raged, how it brought forth waves bigger than worlds, whirlpools capable of swallowing continents, tentacles that resembled more of the arms of a galaxy dripping with rage towards her, it faltered on the bubble of rainbow light that surrounded her.
Frowning slightly, Taylor reached out with one hand, brought her magic to the surface, and reached out towards the darkness crashing ineffectively against the barrier protecting her, and then began focusing.
Slowly, but surely, the ocean of darkness first settled down, like an angry dragon pacified with a sacrifice of a good meal, but still angry and hateful, but otherwise occupied. Then, with a twist of her hand, she began siphoning her darkness up into a ball in front of her.
It mattered not that the darkness seemed to be endless, as size and measurements in the Mist and in front of magic were just mere suggestions. As long as Taylor managed to impose her will on it, for even a short duration, she would be able to do with it what she wanted.
Not long after, she was holding in one hand a hovering ball of seething rage and anguish, echoing with the cries for revenge of trillions of suffering souls, dripping with pain and hatred.
Taking a few seconds to reinforce the magic holding back the tide that threatened to swallow her up, she then turned her attention back to the crystalline body enveloping most of the real estate of the planet.
Taking in the beast in front of her, she had to wonder about the reason behind its apathy and lethargy. After seeing how her simple words affected the avatar through it the actual body, she had to wonder. After all, she only did that because she thought she could make use of the depression she saw in the avatar's eyes.
But now that she was here, Taylor was ready to find out the truth.
Taimi's information packet explained a lot of technical details, but the true purpose behind the entity's action was still a mystery.
Looking over the enormous body, it didn't take her long to spot a gray light softly emerging from an almost central part of the body, pulsing with the same rhythm and lethargy as the crystalline matter it originated from.
Taylor reached out towards the gray light, once again distance and size mattering not in front of the reality-bending presence of the Mist and magic.
The moment she touched the light, she was assaulted with a jumble of images, feelings, like apathy, sadness, some kind of longing, and confusion, but most of all, with an enormous amount of data.
Not even hesitating, she immediately delved deeper into the information that the gray light offered up upon her request.
Delving deeper, she saw snapshots of places, beings, and events.
A barren and drab planet, seemingly teeming with life one minute, then empty and desolate the next, then the image wobbled, and the planet seemed to stretch into infinity with life springing up on infinite versions of the original planet, and at the same time, Taylor saw the same life extinguished countless time, returning the planet to its empty status.
She saw mighty beings, made of familiar crystalline matter spiraling through the ether, around them solar systems appearing and vanishing, stars of all kinds of colors and sizes lighting up in the background only to be consumed by darkness. Sometimes Taylor saw two beings, sometimes infinity amounts, while a few times they were alone, silently swimming through the still ocean of the universe.
Taylor saw planets encircled by shadowy tentacles, some only at the beginning of the process, some barely visible under the crisscrossing lattice of the cruel tentacles originating from the beings. She saw countless beings controlled, influenced by these tentacles, but she saw an equal amount of beings fighting against the same appendages.
Then planets started to show in her vision. Slowly at first, bursting with life, then Taylor had to watch, horrified, as it lost its luster and crumbled to dust under the careful guidance of the entities. Then faster and faster, planet after planet, leaving only cosmic dust and crystalline beings growing bigger and bigger, ever hungry for more.
Seeing all this, Taylor was horrified, appalled, and almost violently sick. The sheer disregard towards life was abhorrent to her. And as she continued to watch what was more than likely the history of the being she was floating over, she couldn't help to ask one question.
Why?
The moment the thought flew through her mind, the black ball of rage to her side responded to it, crying out in desperation as if it was also asking the same question.
Why? Why did they have to suffer? Why did they have to die? Why did they have to vanish into the night?
Taylor just gave a tender smile to the dark ball, and refocused her attention towards the visions, delving into even deeper, looking for a reason that seemed to cause the death of uncountable beings all over the universe.
The only thing she found was fear. Fear of the unknown and known, and the desperation to destroy that fear…
She continued to look over the visions, slowly copying the important ones into data crystals she always carried with her for further perusal, thanks to the weird way these crystalline entities communicated the visions didn't only contain visual information but they all had embedded information in several layers, almost overwhelming Taylor when she tried to access more than the surface information.
Taimi would have something to occupy her for the foreseeable future…
But then she went back to the visions and looked for Earth in them. It didn't take her long to find the vision, which seemed to be almost the last one, as if the being didn't really make fresh memories after it. There were a few snippets here and there, but after the vision of the Earth, the gray light seemed to lose coherence.
The sight of the planet Earth from far afar in the vacuum of space conveyed the same beauty that it did when one looked at it from the Mist. Taylor, thus, watched through the eyes of this entity as they approached the blue marble suspended in space, but then the vision changed.
It showed two of the beings flying, spiraling around each other, almost as if dancing, but Taylor knew they knew not the concept of joy and enjoyment of such action.
Then, to her surprise, another entity appeared, slightly different in size and shape, but unmistakably the same species.
Instead of communicating with words, transmission, or even a messenger pigeon, they simply crashed into each other, brutally tearing up each other, shedding crystalline matter everywhere, exchanging data by tearing out the other's body and replacing it with their own.
Then, as soon as it began, it was over, the third entity traveling away from Earth and the first two, continue their flight towards her home planet, without break.
Then the vision distorted, and Taylor could see Earth stretching into infinity, showcasing all manner of alternate dimensions. Then the infinite line of Earths snapped together, only showcasing two that were definitely not Earth Bet based on the shapes of the continents. Upon further observation, she recognized one of them that was the home of the crystalline beast she fought.
The other was presumably the home of the second entity.
Taylor watched as they slightly separated, the longing clear throughout the vision.
Then a wobble.
The future unfolded before her, a mishmash of images, deafening sounds as countless possible future possibilities assaulted her, shared through the information the entity whose vision she was watching received from the other.
Then another wobble and the other entity noticeably began to list, no longer spiraling with the first entity in harmony.
And another and another, until they were too far away from each other.
The owner of the vision didn't really get feelings, but from what Taylor could sense, it was horrified.
Taylor watched as it helplessly stared as the other entity plummeted towards the planet, seemingly unresponsive…
Taylor then found herself back into her own body, holding a ball of grief in one hand, shining in resplendent light, staring in contemplation at the gray light that seemed even sadder in front of her, and involuntarily said a few words.
"The Warrior and the Thinker huh…"
Processing the information that she was blasted with in the last few seconds as she contemplated the enormous existence that the Entities were.
Taylor was beyond horrified, beyond appalled at their actions.
The sheer idiocy they wrought simply left her aghast.
How could beings with such almost limitless potential and power be so idiotic?
She glanced at the seething orb of darkness, the direct result of the Entities action, and couldn't help but sigh.
So pointless…
Instead of contemplating their existence anymore, Taylor forced the memories she saw into a distant corner of her mind, to be dealt with later, probably with her Quaggan therapist's help, and reached out with her other hand towards the gray light.
And simply with a quick application of will and magic, yanked the offending existence out of its body.
Unsurprisingly, it didn't resist.
For a long moment, she just stared at the gaseous, gray light in her left hand as it idled around as if nothing changed, and then at the geometrically perfect orb of darkness that seemed to be trying its best to escape the confines she wrought around it and destroy the gray light.
She watched for a few minutes as the darkness desperately tried to break out of its prison, then sighed and closed her fist over the gray light, dispersing it and thus destroying the mind, and soul of the being that was known as Scion to the people of Earth.
The moment Taylor did that, the seething mass of darkness froze, as if surprised, then it relaxed simply churning around the orb, still full of hatred and anguish, but no longer trying to desperately escape.
The crystalline body in front of her, however, didn't even notice that the mind was destroyed. Which didn't really surprise Taylor, as she knew thanks to the information she received from the visions, that the countless Shards that made up the Entity could function without a central mind for a while, then one of them would try to become the new central mind.
And now she hovered above a planet, covered by a billion-year-old crystalline being under her, a ball of rage in one hand and no idea what to do…
Meanwhile, time, however slowly, kept passing.
Scion's disappearance left people in a stupor for a while, and the chaos that followed seemed to be dying down as the governments, leading groups kept reassuring the populace that everything was alright, no new Endbringers appeared and it wasn't the sign of the end of the world.
And it would have worked if a certain meddling young woman hadn't done what she had done.
But the moment Taylor crushed the mind and spirit of the Entity called Warrior, the network maintaining the powers granted to the parahumans stopped working for several minutes.
This, understandably, left everybody surprised.
Sadly, a lot of people died as they fell to their death, or when their powers vanished in the middle of a fight, or simply when the power that maintained their health vanished.
Fortunately, there were also positive effects of the power blackout. Several people under Masters' control were freed, several strangers were found where they shouldn't have been, and so on…
The world kept spinning; the chaos kept growing, and people tried to piece together what happened, while the government was frantically running around trying to put out as many fires as possible.
Strangely, nobody noticed that no Case 53 lost their power, or several parahumans around the world weren't among those who lost their powers, notably the Triumvirate.
Yet…
In the end, Taylor didn't know how long she spent staring at the 'fruits' of her labor, but she still couldn't decide what to do with them.
The logical thing would have been to destroy them and get rid of the universe of a genocidal dimensional parasite playing god and an ungodly amount of dark feelings that seemed to gained a mind of their own…
But it didn't feel right…
Staring at the ball of darkness, she slowly injected a sliver of her magic, scrutinizing it, trying to communicate with it. But all she came back was the feelings of hatred and rage, with a little gratitude, more than likely for destroying the Entity's mind.
But then she had a strange idea…
Taylor, with a confident attitude, focused inside her, on the place where the strange seed of magic resided, glowing all kinds of color and flavor, pulsating at the same rhythm as her heartbeat.
Gazing at it for a few seconds, she made a decision.
It was phenomenal power, born from the remnants of the Elder Dragon's magic, created on a whim, almost as an accident. She used it when she needed an extra oomph, but nowadays she barely had any need to access it. Magic wasn't like a parahuman power, static by design; instead, it grew and developed with its user. And Taylor never stopped learning or trying to do new, better, and greater things with magic.
So it was an easy decision to sacrifice it.
With a metaphorical wrench, she yanked it out of herself, feeling a little hollow, but she instantly felt her magic rushing into the hole it left behind, filling it with the familiar warmth, and molded into a ball of light, the same as the other orb she was holding.
Then, before she could change her mind, or somebody else interfered, she simply grabbed hold of the remnants of the gray light that swirled around her, and with a sudden motion slammed the three magics together.
The light explosion was phenomenal. She could not see or hear anything. Only her magical senses told Taylor what was happening.
Light warred with Darkness.
Hatred against Resolution.
Anger against Hope.
Fear against Courage.
Despair against Willpower.
Through her senses, she saw light trying to devour the darkness, while the darkness did everything it could do to extinguish the light, while the gray light was buffeted between the two of them without aim or purpose.
Knowing that if she left it up to them, this would continue for an eternity, she reached out with her magic, this time not even remotely gently. and forcefully subdued both light and darkness, while slowly merging them together, like a surgeon stitching a wound closed. Instead, she used the gray light as the thread.
They didn't like this.
Light quailed under her power, refusing to submit. Darkness wanted nothing to do with Light, abhorring the very concepts it represented. And as Taylor worked her magic, honed over decades fighting the Elder Dragons, the two fights went from mortal enemies to siblings jostling about who would be the first to the pool.
And in the moment, when the last thread was placed, and both halves were indistinguishable from each other, yet Taylor could clearly sense the light, dark and gray energies together but separated by a thin layer of her magic.
So, giving a last once over, with a quick motion, she dismissed her magic, letting the magical energies in front of her absorb it.
The result, to her consternation, was another explosion of light and shadows, keeping her physical eyes closed, but this time also making her turn off her magical senses as the resulting explosion of the chaotic energies was such that it simply overwhelmed her senses.
Opening her eyes, she was a little surprised to be back fully in the Mist, looking directly at Earth, which was still the same, enveloped by the creepy dark tentacles.
The most surprising thing was that in front of her was a being.
A very familiar being.
She was tall, with long luscious black hair that seemed to swallow up light, similar to the black holes she had witnessed in the past (Dragon's Watch even had a running tally of how many black holes they survived, and for some reason, Taimi was in the lead), the same face she saw in the mirror every day with a few differences that reminded her of a few people of her past. She was also surprisingly barefoot. Her nails, both on her hand and feet, were painted with the same black as her hair, simply absorbing light.
Her clothing was the exact opposite.
Blindingly white robes, with a few silver and gold armor pieces here and there for decoration, with a dull gray sash around her midsection with a simple white spiral on it.
The most unusual feature on her, however, was her eyes. Pure, dull gray with flashes of blindingly bright rainbow colors flittering through it every few seconds, staring at Taylor with akin of awe and gratitude.
Taylor, still working through what happened, just continued to stare at the being that chose to look like her, and waited until it talked.
She didn't have to wait too long. Her doppelgänger bowed deeply, her entire countenance screaming respect towards her and a few other things she didn't really want to get into.
Then her copy straightened and said one word.
[PROGENITOR]
The information and data contained in that world slammed into Taylor as if several Elder Dragons decided that ramming into something with light speed would be fun.
It contained the gratitude of the souls merged into the ocean of darkness, for finally providing an escape from their cursed existence and giving them a purpose, a form, and agency. It also contained their joy for finally escaping their confines and their celebration of the Warrior's death, as well as anticipation of the future.
On the other side, it contained a simple message of the light side. Gratitude for teaching it what it meant to use magic, to be a hero, and to never give up. It also exulted in the chance to express its love towards life, while also radiating responsibility and that it would follow her example to protect and help.
Though Taylor could detect a little mischievousness from the light, instead she sought out the gray light.
It was silent, just as she suspected.
While she processed the information dump, her doppelgänger which was the result of a humungous amount of magic merging, simply turned towards Earth and dispersed into motes of light.
Immediately, the dark web of tentacles that there were doing their best to encircle Earth began to change, with the change starting from their roots, where Taylor knew the doors were.
They slowly started to turn first a lighter shade of black, then gray, finally dirty white, with veins of silver and gold and black here and there.
Then the moment the change was finished (although the secondary web of tentacles, belonging to the Thinker, was left alone), the tentacles went through explosive growth, slowly growing more numerous, fully encircling Earth and growing into other dimensions, making contact with alternate Earths.
Taylor also saw several small exploratory tentacles approach a few of the Thinker's.
Then, there was an enormous pulse of magic that scattered the ever-present and ever-malleable cloud of silver mist present around her and the planet, and a giant tentacle of rainbow-colored magic emerged from the dull golden door, which slowly turning into a white, black, and rainbow-colored circular gate, and headed directly at Earth.
Taylor watched in wonder as the rainbow tentacle began to fly towards Earth, heading directly at its core, knowing full well the implications of this action.
Then she just started to laugh, throwing a small wave in the direction of the gate, and turned to leave the Mist, as she had a few more things to arrange…
Before she left, she sensed a jolly wave of magic akin to her hand wave, carrying a goodbye message from the new entity she created.
She laughed until she found the nearest bottle of alcohol...
