Sophia's Chronicles

RECAP: Sophia and Sixty-Six were trapped in a door-less room full of life-sucking creatures. Sixty-Six opens up to Sophia about her past (having had a son and killing him to refuse Khaos) and becoming Satan. She also warns Sophia to be careful around the other doppelgangers. They escaped and came upon a symbol/ insignia which could either lead them to the Omniverse (the old lair of Khaos where He would oversee the happenings of the Void and the multiverse) or possible death. They take a chance based on Sophia's hunch, which goes against what Forty-Two's analyses of these symbols suggested. Forty-Two is the first of the doppelgangers that Sophia met, who was the only other hybrid archangel of Light and Darkness. A strange deity had attacked them before, hinting at so-called 'conflict zones' which Sophia thinks is where the Keys of Conflict are located – keys to Omega's cage. Releasing Omega is a priority in order to defeat Alpha.


Chapter 84: Trust Fall

The Void

"Remember what I said," she whispered in my ear. Sixty-Six gave me a knowing nod. She'd told me that I trusted people too easily. I hadn't really thought of it before but it wasn't because of naiveté. I'd just thought that we all had the same goal, of wanting to put an end to Alpha's reign of terror so that we could return home in peace. So that I could find something I'd lost. Perhaps even that was too naïve.

We huddled closely as we walked through the narrow passage. Soon, the familiar opening came and so did the narrow slit on the door. She rapped on the door. Its metallic booms were some source of comfort. The slit slid open. Eyes identical to mine peeked through. The green orbs recognised us both, but their suspicion had yet to ease.

"Code?" the one on the other side asked.

"Arezodi, rore, ozodi," I answered. Peace the Sapling, the Sun the Giver and the hand seeks, it roughly translated from Enochian. It was taken from an old poem about how being in control of forces led to peace of mind. Something I desperately needed.

The slit closed and with a heavy creak, the door swung open to let us into the Omniverse. "Welcome back, sisters," the one guarding the door greeted us.

"I apologise for my absence. Things got… messy," I told her.

I should have known by the look on her face that something was up. She didn't seem much concerned. In fact, it seemed more like wariness. "Save your explanations for the Commander," she simply said.

The Commander? That was supposed to be me. Sixty-Six and I had an unspoken understanding to be on the lookout. We followed the hallway. A series of rooms not immediately of interest passed us by, though they were occupied by those we knew. A few of them were infirmaries and few others were control panels that we monitored and controlled to maintain security. It wasn't too long ago that we sabotaged Alpha's visual systems, which previously allowed Him to watch over everything in the Void. The control panels helped us monitor the areas we'd secured around the Omniverse and would tell us if anything weird came up. One of those oddities was the very sound that led Sixty-Six and I to find that disturbing room with the infectious creatures. Not knowing what else to call them, we termed them Leeches.

We didn't go unnoticed as we passed these rooms. The moment we were spotted, their normal banter softened to a silence. Various degrees of frowns and stares came into sight. I hadn't realised how disconcerting it was to have so many eyes on me, especially when those eyes were my own. It made me feel like a visitor in my own skin. Finally, we made it into the grand room that hosted the Interface. Hundreds of our sisters muttered amongst themselves, mostly directed towards something at the very forefront where the Interface was.

When we began walking through the crowd, we saw the same mysterious stare on all their faces. It was only when we'd made it into the small opening they'd formed at the Interface that things became clearer. Forty-Two was there, adjusting the knobs and buttons on the mainframe as usual. There was Eighty, the one with the constant frown and a stern aura that took all jokes too seriously. She stood a couple feet away, just observing with her arms crossed. She was always quick to point out mistakes – an annoying albeit useful trait. Thirty-Seven and Fifty-Five were debriefing and delegating responsibilities to the rest. But once the crowd parted, their orders stopped.

"Y-you're back," Thirty-Seven's voice was the first to show warmth. Upon hearing the tendrils of her relief, Forty-Two and Eighty took notice too. I noted how wide Forty-Two's eyes became. "We thought you were dead."

"We thought so too," Sixty-Six told her with a cheeriness that wasn't reciprocated.

"Sophia," Forty-Two blinked rapidly at me. It was like no one else mattered to her. "It is a salve to my heart to see you again."

She extended her arms eagerly and pulled me into a hug. At my side, Sixty-Six did that head tilt again, eyes pointing cynically at the woman in my arms. When Forty-Two pulled away, I swore I saw a dampness in her eyes. How dramatic.

"I wasn't even ready to grieve," she sobbed. I stopped myself from pulling away when she cupped my cheeks with her palms. "We should have never let you go off like that. We needed you here."

"You seem to be doing just fine without us," Sixty-Six pointed out. Forty-Two huffed, offended that she wasn't even allowed a moment of vulnerability.

"When it became a real possibility that our dear Commander couldn't make it back, I knew someone had to be strong. What she's started here is so much bigger than all of us. I knew she would have wanted someone to assume her role and continue this revolution," Forty-Two explained through thin tears that she wiped away immediately.

"And that someone had to be you?" Sixty-Six questioned with a sceptical monotone.

That was enough for Eighty to give her a biting reply as always. "And what about you? You were supposed to keep her safe. Instead you left us here to pull our hairs out worrying about whether she was dead or alive," she snippily retorted. "What did you do all this time, braid each other's locks?"

"Hey, you don't know what we saw, alright?" Sixty-Six growled back. Here we go again. "There were Leeches, okay? These things that would just crawl up your face and suck the life out of you. I'm kinda wishing one would shut you up right now."

Some more unnecessary verbal abuses were exchanged. The initial surprise of it all wore off soon enough. "That's enough!" I yelled, stepping between them. "What's done is done. We can't have chaos brewing amongst us, because that's exactly what Khaos would want." As soon as I said those words, silence fell over all of us. "What matters is that we're back, and we bring intel. Tell me, has there been any progress on the code we found some time back?"

The doppelgangers looked among each other with uncertainty. They seemed to turn towards Forty-Two. "I'll tell you all about it," she assured me. And to the rest, she said, "Our true Commander is back. Let us all give her some time to settle back in with us."

Upon hearing that, they seemed to disperse in what finally gave me some breathing space. I thought having less attention on myself would make me feel more in control, but it turned out to be the opposite. It felt like my grip on their convictions was eroding. I began to wonder what had happened here to make them regard me like I was some stranger. My gaze eventually shifted to the archangel at my side.

"Words cannot express, truly," Forty-Two said as she ushered me towards the Interface. "I didn't want to say this in front of the others because I didn't want them to feel like I had favourites. But you and I both know we are more intimately linked than they are. Our lives are closer to each other than with anyone else. And the essence of us – the two of us alone – is hybrid. Losing you would have been like losing myself."

It came to mind how large structures of earth could be eroded by wind and water. That was my sense of security right now. All this ingratiation constantly chipped away at it. It could have been somewhat easier for me before to fly into her arms and proclaim my loyalty. But after the things I'd seen, the bigger picture was clearer to me. Forty-Two was the very first one of my copies I'd met. If anything, it seemed a miracle to me how I'd ever opened myself up to her again. In fact, that was all I saw when I looked around me. When did this ever become okay? Trusting a bunch of strangers just because they looked like me? Just because I thought they wanted the same as me?

"Hey, are you okay?" she waved a hand in front of my eyes. I snapped out of it. "You've barely said a word."

"I'm just… a little shaken," I said back to her. "I'm starting to see things more clearly."

"Really? That's great," her lips curved a gentle relief. "I'm glad to hear it, because I have so much to show you." she eagerly worked her trained fingers on the Interface, pulling up a screen. "This is the string of symbols we had earlier."

I recognised them. We had translated it to "The Sun rises but it's dark. Water flows but the mountains are still."

"I talked to our sister who brought this strange riddle to us. She's doing fine, by the way. A few hours of rest and she was up in arms as usual," Forty-Two told me. "But you were right. This passage doesn't refer to a physical location. The room where she found the chip encoding the symbols is one of many in the Void which have literal words of creation written in the walls."

"There are others?" I wondered.

"Yes, and we think those large insignias that we've seen everywhere have to do with it. There's a specific indentation in the insignia that could indicate which rooms contain these passages," she posited.

"You mean the same insignias you ran through the Interface and found no pattern linking them? The same ones that either killed or brought our sisters back," I recalled, a sour tinge on my tongue. "I staked my life on one of those to get back here. And now you tell me there is something to be learnt from them after all."

"Perhaps our initial analysis was too simplistic. We only looked at it in terms of a binary relation – whether the path led here or not. Maybe that's why it failed. So much more information could be contained in these symbols that confounded our results," she reasoned. How convenient. A breakthrough shows itself after I'm gone. "Anyway, let's not get side-tracked. This made me think that these lines were about creation. The first line refers to a time – specifically, dawn. Hence the darkness when the Sun rises. It could also be a reference to the reign of Darkness over Light, which is also a statement of time."

"Creation is always described in terms of light coming into a darkness," I thought out loud. "And it was always Darkness that tried to conquer the Light."

"Yes, almost like a fight for balance. And we see this in the second line too. 'Water flows but the mountains are still.' Water, at the base of the mountains, represents the smallest elements of nature. The mountains oversee everything, like the divine elements. The water is dynamic and ever-changing but the divine is static," she noted. "As it was in the beginning."

"I don't understand," I frankly said. "This happened everywhere. And it isn't even the full story. Ask any of our sisters and we'll come to know how things escalated to an unrecognisable state after this."

"That is the norm," Forty-Two agreed. "But for all of existence to take its own uncharted path, there had to be assurances that balance would remain. Places where conflict and order treaded a thin line. Places that could absorb the deviant energy from any place that trespassed its balance. Alpha would never talk about it. He would never even show me those places. It was knowledge far too sacred. But I think that's what we're after."

"Conflict zones," I put a name to it. Forty-Two seemed to nod in recognition. "Some deity who attacked Sixty-Six and I told me about it. He said they would erupt soon and that would be a terrible thing."

"I'd imagine so," her irises slowed to a daze, expression frozen by some dark thought. "From what I've heard, these conflict zones are not indestructible. As much as the multiverse depends on them, they too depend on the rest of existence. Too much of chaos or order in the multiverse could overwhelm them. And that would be bad."

Her prolonged bewilderment was beginning to make me feel tingles on the inside. "There are six of them," I said, as if any added information would introduce hope back into this conversation. Apparently, that wasn't a long shot.

"I tried as best as I could, searching every nook and cranny that I could find on this overly complicated machine," she lamented. Instinctively, she tapped away at the buttons. "I'm glad to say, that I've managed to find three."

I gasped. Mouth wide, mind stunned. "You found them?" I repeated, afraid it wouldn't be real if I didn't say it out loud. "You actually found these conflict zones? Three of them?"

"Shh… Keep it down, will you?" she beckoned me. "I wasn't sure if I should reveal this to everyone else. I mean, this is a very delicate matter. Like I said, Alpha wouldn't even tell me, and He considered me someone He trusted."

I blinked. I was beginning to reconsider my distrust of her, but I calmed myself down before I began singing praises in her name. "The Keys of Conflict have got to be somewhere in this mess. You could've sent teams by now to these sites. But you held back because of Alpha's ticks?" I worried. "We haven't much time to do this, and we only have half the locations of the Keys to Omega's cage."

"Sophia, please, hear me out," she placed a firm hand on my forearm. "You know as well as I do that rushing into trouble is never a good idea, no matter how urgent it seems. If I'd told everyone, they'd be stepping over themselves to end this whole fiasco. And I can't have something as important as this seen through with such momentum. I had sincerely hoped that you would return. And if you hadn't…" her crystalline gaze bore through me. "I might have left to do it on my own. You're the only person I trust with this information."

The rock was eroding again. At least I had the intel to soothe me. "Tell me about the conflict zones," I asked, mentally brushing myself off.

She gave me a curt nod. "One underlying pattern among all these seem to be that they are the quintessence of the most fundamental rules of existence," she began. It brought back the distinct memory of our attacker, who'd been eager to tell me how he depended on these rules. Mere words from his mouth had made the situation seem manageable, but remembering his express malaise was sobering. "I'd only managed to find these three because they were the most obvious. The first is a place where energy isn't conserved. As the symbols say…" she ran a finger over the screen to illustrate. "Hands meet, but don't agree."

It took me a while to decipher it. "Forces come together, but don't leave in the same amount they were born in," I tried to put it in my own words.

"Yes," she agreed. As if she already knew what was to come, a stray finger reached to rub her temple. "The theory is simple. But finding a place like this… where would we even begin?"

Inside, I had thought the same thing. Every time we moved one step forward, it seemed like there would be ten more steps that came into view. "Without the laws of physics, it seems to me that these places would appear like diseases. Perhaps we should know what symptoms to look out for," I suggested. "Think, what would a universe with no conservation of energy look like?"

"Huh," she gave it some thought. "I never thought of it that way."

"I suppose we'll know when we see it," I said. "Tell me about the other two."

"The second one is similar to the first one. The symbols read, 'The pieces fall into place,'" she read out. "Against all odds, it seems to imply."

"Entropy," I realised. "Perfect order almost never happens. That's gotta be it."

"And the third: 'The sparks of life, never extinguished'," she said. "I can only guess it means nothing dies."

"That's a scary thought," I remarked. One was reminded of my youth, when I thought mortal death was the scary thing. Life on earth had just begun, and the whole concept of natural selection seemed absurd to me. You brought life to these creatures, only to make them compete for it? I'd prayed to God. I thought it was the most cruel thing. It was only after billions of years passed and the ecosystem had grown that I saw what beauty truly lay beyond such seemingly unnecessary death. I'd understood it to be essential for newer and better things to come. But to now stand here and wonder what could have been if my childish fit had dictated reality… "Such a burden it would be on nature."

"So you see, what we've found here is… momentous. Things that have never been seen before, never conceived by any of us. To bring this information to the others could make things more volatile than they already are," she urged. "Still, I'm glad to have your input on this. Amongst all of us, it was you who Khaos looked most keenly to for help. I'm beginning to see why. How should we proceed?"

"I am of the opinion that declaring Him our foe and then trying to follow in His footsteps is… irrational. If these locations are as important as they are in keeping Alpha's greatest enemy locked up, it makes sense to me that He would try to hide them as much as possible. But I do take your point on the… sensitivity of this situation," I considered. "I say we assign few of our sisters to obtain each Key. The others can stay here and fortify our territory, and help look for the actual cage. Maybe it doesn't seem like it, but sharing the load is the best way to handle this."

I released a deep breath after finishing my own sentence. Am I really doing this? Can I really trust them? As much as I'd been warned, by both Sixty-Six and my own instincts, this really did seem to be the best approach. I couldn't isolate everyone I sought for help. Not now. There was still so much to be done.


Hell – Present Day

Back here again. Lucifer dug his hands in his pockets. The solitude was refreshing. He was always alone, in his heart and in his mind, but to be physically away from everything was a different kind of reality to face. Here he was confronted with the stark image of who he was deep down and for that, at least, he was grateful. A cold gaze swept across the dark landscape, only lit by torches that sprung to life when he passed them. A great abyss greeted him. There was static and heat and coldness in the air – a confused garble of forces that forbade anyone of a lower existence from entering. For a time, at least, this was his own corner of existence. His alone.

It had taken a lot of deliberation to come to this point. He'd gone over it again and again in his mind. But after what he'd seen, he thought it was time. He went down the intricate stone steps. It was a long, meandering path into the lifeless cavity somewhere deep in Hell. Every inch he moved closer to his destination weighed on him like an anchor. All the memories of what could've been, what should've been, what should've never… if there was a true ache to ever feel, it was that.

And finally, he saw what he came for. The Cage, in all its metallic, excruciatingly insulating exterior, stood towering over him. He regarded the elaborate Enochian locks and warding with a clarity he lacked before. That made sense, considering the last time he actually saw its exterior like this was just moments prior to being shoved into it. He ran a hand over the sigils, walking around the perimeter to its adjacent wall. They illuminated fleetingly as he did so. This next facet of the Cage was most curious. He stood at a distance, just admiring how things looked from the outside. This wall was mostly just made of bars. How nice of Dad to give me a view. He turned around himself slowly for a moment to take it all in. Bottomless pit looks just as bottomless as ever.

From this angle, not much could be seen of what was inside the Cage. Inside, it was all darkness. So much so that it seeped out through the bars in seductive black tendrils. How comforting the isolation could be sometimes, when all hope was lost and misery proved a better companion than any. It had been a thick, embracing blanket called agony.

"How's the weather in there?" he called out.

No answer. Just the distant cries of pain from the deepest reaches of Hell.

"I know you're in there, Mike," he sighed, taking a couple steps closer to the bars. "Show yourself."

It was a while he waited, standing there all snarky-like. Tapping away his foot, hands clasped behind his back. And the audacity to show up in that immaculately pressed white button-up – dressed in tip-top shape from head to toe.

"I just wanna talk," he shrugged, gaze roving over the ground. "We haven't done much of that in a while, have we?"

For a moment, the tendrils shifted and Lucifer looked up, hoping to see something. Perhaps movement from beyond. But nothing came to light.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "You know, it's going to be a long two hundred years in Hell before I try this again," he sardonically huffed. "I hope you're happy counting the days in there."

He turned by the heel of his polished black shoe to leave. All hope had been thrown over the edge to sink despondently into a bottomless crevasse. Another wall was ready to erect itself in his heart. Another sturdy, unbreachable monument to the emptiness he drew on for strength.

Clang. The metallic boom echoed, sweeping through the air with such force that it extinguished the torches closest to Lucifer. Of course, his continued presence allowed them to reignite. But he was intrigued. He faced that large nightmare box again. This time, when he found himself standing before the bars, a sole hand clutched them from the other side.

"Did you just come here to gloat at me?" the voice from beyond said. Slowly but surely, the black smoke dispelled. Michael stepped forward, showing Adam's sullen face. "Now that our positions are reversed."

"That's just not true, brother. Can't call it a reversal if you never once visited me like this," Lucifer simply said. "Two hundred thousand years and you didn't even drop by once. What, were you afraid you'd see the barbarism of it all?"

Michael rolled his eyes, jaw clenching.

"You were too busy following what you thought Dad wanted and where did that get you, huh? The same place it got me for defying Him," he stated outright. "How'd you like it in there? Less than pleasant, isn't it? Now imagine what it must have been like for me."

"What happened to me was that little worm Dean Winchester. But you? You gave God every reason to put you in here," Michael spat out caustically.

"God didn't put me in here. That may have been His plan. But it was you. You put me here, Mike," Lucifer said through clenched teeth. "And don't defend Him! He just left you in here to rot. I warned you so many times that He's just making us play games. I know you know that for a fact."

Michael just stared at his brother in abject disdain. "I don't need this humiliation from you," he said with a dead anger. "Just leave me be."

Lucifer jerked towards the bars when he saw his brother turn away. "Wait," he called out. When those light-coloured Winchester eyes looked back at him, he was struck with a pause. "Aren't you tired of this? Don't you want to get out of this terrible place?"

"That's real big, Lucifer. You just got a 'Get-out-of-jail-free' card and now you want to free me because… what? Because you're so benevolent?" Michael huffed. "And you still dare to come here and speak ill of Father."

"God didn't set me free," Lucifer argued. "It was Khaos."

Michael's brows furrowed. "Who?"

"God's older brother. That's right, He never told us we had a weird Uncle," Lucifer explained. "Khaos took my son."

When he said that, it wasn't sadness Michael saw on his brother's face. It was a kind of anger he found curious. The kind borne of such strange emotions he couldn't see in Heaven because his brother wasn't there. A sting pounded in his heart. A spiritual exhaustion belaboured a sigh from Michael's lungs. "What do you want?"

Shallow breaths made it past Lucifer's lips. "We're all we have left, Mike," he told him. "You're the only family I have left. Do we have to be enemies?"

"It was you who declared me your enemy," Michael accused, scorching tears rushing to the forefront of his eyes. "You swung the knife first."

It gave Lucifer some relief to at last see something genuine in his brother. "I know," he admitted. "And I'm asking you now to help me put all of this behind us. Father may never come back. He may never stand in front of us and tell us why we had to suffer for as long as we have. But we don't have to prostrate and spend every single moment longing for Him. Don't you see? There's nothing left for either of us other than each other. I want to make things right."

"You say this now. But the moment Sophie comes back and gives me so much as a side-eye, you'll be eager to throw me aside," Michael crossed his arms and leant against the wall. "I should've known from all those playful looks between the two of you that my brother was lost forever."

"What is it with all of you? Pretending you never loved her once everything changed? At least be honest, like you are with me," he lamented.

"Fine, I'll be honest. Where is she now?" Michael stuck his head forward.

A measured exhale made it through Lucifer's nostrils. "I don't know," his lips formed a tight line. "I try not to think about it."

"Liar." Michael huffed into a smile. "So that's just it, isn't it? Your lover isn't here, so now you turn to me, because there's no one left. Glad to be your last choice."

"Now you're the one who's gloating," Lucifer pouted, avoiding his brother's gaze. "Haven't we done enough of this the last time?"

The elder archangel eyed his brother intently. After some thought, he released a concessionary breath. "You said Khaos took your son. Knowing Sophia, she would have gone after Him, don't you think?" he supposed.

"I know that for a fact. But when I confronted Khaos, He acted like He had no clue. I had half a mind to rush in and demand more answers, but I soon found out that she'd left her vessel here. Now why would she do that, huh? She's trying to tell me not to look," Lucifer guessed. "Either that or…"

"She's dead and He's covering it up," Michael finished his sentence. "And you let that stop you from looking?"

"It's better to live with the uncertainty," the younger brother said through a shaky voice.

"You really are a broken man, Lucifer," Michael observed.

"Zara's been trying to get in contact with her. No luck so far. But the Hawk—the vessel is still capable of channelling its magic. That can only happen if Sophia's alive, right?" he desperately clung onto the slim hope. When Lucifer realised he was rambling, he came to a solemn self-awareness. He looked into his brother's eyes and didn't know what he saw in them. He couldn't imagine it to be any concern. A worse possibility yet was that Michael too didn't know. Lucifer banged a fist against the bars. "I'm trying to offer you a real chance at something."

"So what, you want me to sell my soul to the Devil? Is that it?" Michael wondered. "We've already been through this."

"Have we?" Lucifer snapped at him. "You said you didn't want to rebel because you're a good son. Dad threw His good son into the trash. Are you really going to turn away a future for the sake of pride?" Lucifer practically heaved with exasperation. "Besides, rebellion's all the rage now. Even the angels are doing it. If I'd only known to wait some hundred thousand years for my revolution to be trendy. Then we wouldn't even have a problem!"

"What did you say?" Michael narrowed his eyes. "The angels?"

"Oh, you didn't hear? God resurrected Heaven's resident moron Castiel. Twice, I might add," Lucifer chuckled dryly. "Ah, the sweet irony of it all. The first time, he went on a rampage and killed thousands of angels. And then he tried to open Purgatory. I've done some terrible things, but never have I once tried to unleash the polluted landfill that's Purgatory onto the world. That's crossing a line, even for me."

"Sophia killed him before he could accomplish that, did she not?" Michael asked, drawn into his brother's words.

"She did," Lucifer nodded. "With my day-old cherub on her waist, she still managed to guard the sanctity of God's creation. And what did He do in response? Gave that little maggot another chance, when He wouldn't even look at me twice. And now, Castiel and his little friends are running around in Heaven desecrating the very foundations we built for them. They're trying to create some kind of democracy."

"A democracy? What are we, savages?" Michael gasped.

"Right?" Lucifer agreed. They shared a mutually agreeable huff between them. "You're the King of Heaven, Michael. Maybe you were too modest, too caught up in pleasing Dad that you never gave yourself a second thought. But that's what you are. You took the helm when no one else could. You ran things almost single-handedly."

"I had Raphael."

"Like I said, single-handedly," Lucifer dismissed. "And I'm the King of Hell. I've taken my throne. Will you take yours?"

Michael didn't say yes, but he also didn't say no. Everything his brother said resounded in his head. "If Heaven was ripe for the taking, wouldn't you have taken it already?" he remained cynical.

"My sights were never set on Heaven. They aren't a threat to me. They've been so focused on their own dysfunction that they've left the earth unguarded. That's the real prize," Lucifer confessed. A childlike smile lit up his face as his maniacal intentions came to mind. "I thought I wanted to destroy it all before, but I was wrong, brother. The earth, humanity—it's all waiting to be conquered. You know what I realised after all this time?" Lucifer paused. "All this responsibility of looking after the universe was too much for God. He felt too much for His creations. That's why He left. And who better to take His place than two archangels. His first sons. We don't care as much as Him. That's what the world needs. Strong, objective leaders."

His enthusiasm wasn't as contagious as he'd expected. He held out hope as long as he could, despite the cynicism written deep in the creases of his brother's forehead. "If Heaven is as much a 'non-threat' as you say it is, some tremendous amendments are certainly in order," the elder archangel muttered, lifting his chin.

A serpentine smile wrote itself on Lucifer's jaw. "It brings me great joy to hear you say that," a radiance spread throughout him like the first rays of dawn.

"How will you get me out?" Michael finally dared ask.

"Sophia had a spell prepared, before I'd been released by Khaos. It shouldn't take me long to assemble it," Lucifer remembered. "It's forbidden magic so it should have a little extra kick. But from what I recall, it's a projection spell and required her to find me a vessel."

"I already have a vessel," he answered. "So it should work, should it not?"

"It will, but like I said, it's forbidden magic. We should probably read the fine print and see what the downside is," Lucifer suggested.

Michael gave him a dead stare. "You're kidding, right?" he droned monotonously. "A spell to project an entity from the Cage into another location?" When he was met with a clueless glare from Lucifer, he shook his head. "It's you, Lucifer. You're the downside to the spell."

"Oh, Michael, stop it," Lucifer blushed. "I'm not used to flattery from you."

"No, it's true. That's why it's forbidden. To prevent you from escaping before your time," his brother's light-heartedness went over Michael's head. An unknowable thought pervaded his mind. "So what, you're gonna head back and break me free, is that it?"

"You suddenly sound unimpressed," the Devil noted.

"The Cage isn't a quiet contraption. The moment you do this, everyone will know," he warned. "If you are taking the earth as you say, this distraction would betray your playing cards. We need to wait for the right time – when your enemies are weakest and the angels most helpless."

The sound of that serenaded Lucifer's ears. He paid full attention.


The Void

The temptation of a free second was appealing. I sat down in front of the Interface and closed my eyes. It opened up my other sensory modalities. I sighed. One sight was shut off, but the others were decidedly active. I heard all, felt all.

"Relay location Alef to Yud, over."

"Yud, all clear. Over."

"We have the first location. Prepare for take-off."

"Engines need maintenance. Anyone sound in nebular-combined aerospace engineering?"

"We'll need to find an appropriate capacitor for that."

"Capacitor? Where in Aechotara's Gut are we supposed to find one? Just build one from scratch!"

"You build one! If it's so easy… By God, do you people think spare parts grow on trees?"

I rubbed my temples with my forefingers. I had always craved the company of sisters growing up, but seeing what a room full of them could do, I had to be thankful for what I did get. I supposed it was the same with brothers. The itch to seize control dominated my fingertips, but I exercised enough inhibition to let go. After all, it wouldn't be right to swoop in like this – as if I lacked trust. It was always good to keep my intuitions to myself. But that didn't mean I had to endure this noise any longer.

The rooms on the periphery, past which I had walked to get to the main area with the screens, were far quieter. Here, the work was mainly observation and analysis. They watched the monotonous swings and flashes of all kinds of instruments. If anything went wrong, it would first be known here. And it would first be dealt with here. I watched them softly mouthing numbers and recording them as the various meters exhibited their readings. Unlike the expedition teams, my sisters here were a far better testimony of the cooperation we were capable of. I had been quick to divine that they were more inclined for these sorts of things upon my first meeting with them. I had desperately hoped my first impressions weren't mistaken, but so far my assignments of all my doppelgangers seemed to have been met with acceptance and no resistance.

In my contemplation, I noticed how one of my doppelgangers had styled her hair. They hung in pristine curls down the sides of her face, while the others had declined such an effort. A minute detail to notice, I was aware, but amusing nonetheless. The same one caught a glimpse of me standing at the doorway and widened her eyes briefly before welcoming me in.

"Sophia, I didn't see you there," she called out to me. The others who were standing elsewhere or seated on a common table looked up momentarily, but seeing that they weren't the Sophia being referred to, went straight back to whatever they had been doing before.

"I got distracted," I confessed as I approached. "Tell me, how did you accomplish this?"

I pointed fleetingly at her black locks. "Oh this," she caressed them in her hands. "You see, these wires overheat sometimes. It provides the perfect surface area for curling. I just… I missed doing this." She chuckled with a lost happiness. "Back in my day, I'd take great pleasure in adorning myself in the finest silks and the purest crystals."

"There's no need to apologise," I reassured her. "You'll find that the modern world has a lot to offer for someone looking for fine fashion. I hear something called a Gucci is all the rage among the rich humans."

"That sounds vulgar," she cringed like she tasted something bitter. "Maybe someone needs to teach these humans the sophisticated art of angel weaving techniques."

"That's… an open market right there," I encouraged despite my better judgment. "So what does the data tell us today?"

She seamlessly switched to her analytical self and ran her fingers over the relevant modules. "The gravitational activities are normal, but this twitching is expected because of the expedition out of the Void. The fluctuations should be accounted for by a pull from chaos particles multiverse-wide," she reported.

I breathed a sigh of relief. "I know that nothing is truly 'good' or 'bad' when it comes to these things, but of the two possible ways the chaosmeter can swing, downwards offers a far more controllable reversal than upwards. So this is a relief to hear," I remarked. "How certain are you of this prediction?"

"As you can see," she gestured my attention to a board on the far end of the room, to which five of my doppelgangers attended. The board was densely populated with all kinds of numerical scribbles. "We've run the numbers with four different mathematical languages and looked over it a dozen times. It all says the same thing. The expedition's a 'go' from our end."

I nodded, but some reservation still plagued me. I walked over to the board. "Explain it to me," I asked.

Upon hearing that, there was some awkward shifting. The Sophias looked amongst each other. I sensed some discomfort. "It'll be a while," one of them spoke up. "But don't worry, we've gone over it so many times it's airtight."

"It's my job to worry," I firmly told her. "One small mistake here and everything could be compromised. We've all worked far too hard for that."

My decision seemed to be met with some eye-rolling. Yet, they humoured me and took the time to walk me through what they'd done. It wasn't any pleasant for me to take it upon myself to do this either, but necessity compelled me. These days, I felt on-edge frequently.

With my expressed approval, they went back to their work while I checked on some other rooms with similar eye for detail. Each time, I left with the odour of ire hanging on my back. Whatever Forty-Two had gotten them used to in my absence was turning them away from me. Something told me my time was running short.

This time, when I watched each window passing me by, showing me their galaxies, I saw nothing but responsibility. I found myself wondering if everything was as it should be, or if something or someone had compromised it all. Even a slight malignant shift in their archangelic light emissions made me wonder if I should worry.

"Sophia," a voice pulled me out of my paranoid daze. It was Sixty-Six, looking all weathered.

"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be on the expedition team," I asked. She rushed over to me, taking my hands in hers. This time, I was truly riveted.

"Something's happened," she said stoically, which for her was sombre. "You've got to see this."

"What now?" I grew alarmed. She pulled me down the hallway towards the infirmary, my eventual last stop. What I saw past the threshold froze me to my core. "Oh no…"

I approached the makeshift bedding, my hand reaching out in a twitchy hesitation. One of us lay on the bed, still as vacuum. Her eyes were shut. Behind her, the burnt silhouette of wings painted the black walls in an ashen grey. There were no stab wounds. No visible injuries, in fact. The only culprit was the invasive black liquid that seemed to have oozed out of her mouth in thin, branched tendrils. My forefinger would have investigated, but Sixty-Six held back my hand.

"We don't know what it is," she said.

"Don't we?" I snapped back at her. Her unflinching stare gave me space to reflect on my tone. I backed away from both her and the bed. "We've both seen this before."

"You have?" Another one of us was immediately alerted.

"On our last trip outside, we were attacked by these Leeches," I told her, exchanging a knowing look with Sixty-Six. "This strange liquid is reminiscent of their infection."

The other archangel grew worried, but Sixty-Six stepped between us before her panic grew. "But they were also succulent creatures that enjoyed latching onto our faces," she recalled out loud, which did nothing to ease the other one's alarm. "If this was truly them, we'd see those Leeches, wouldn't we? I don't see anything."

"I hope you're right," I prayed. Thousands of morbid possibilities ran through my mind. A feeling washed over me like something had crawled underneath my skin. Just the image of my own self killed by one of these things—I stopped myself from shuddering. When I finally pulled myself out of this rabid introspection, I noticed the others looking to me. "Write an incident report. Inform the others. We need to remain vigilant."

The moment I stepped out of that room and found myself with my backs to them, I released a great exhale. Dear God… what is upon us now? Just as I contemplated the impossibility of it all, I felt a presence approaching me.

"You're probably thinking of jumping off the edge of a universe," Sixty-Six settled next to me. We both stared longingly out the windows for a moment. "You probably think that this is the end. But let me tell ya – it's been 'the end' from the moment you set us all free. We've just been dodging one arrow after the next. That's the norm. So don't think that this one case is the apocalypse. This place has been resisting us this whole time. You just made progress, so expect the resistance to be greater. In fact, this could be a sign that we're actually going in the right direction."

"The expectations don't matter," I muttered. My arms were crossed, but slowly, a finger raised to rest a knuckle on my chin. "The fact is that one of ours died. There's no sugar-coating or putting a positive spin on that. How did the infection even get here? Was it…" the very dread of the possibility made my fingers tremble. "Was it us? Did we let it in here?"

"If we did, the infection would have had so much more time to infect way more than just one of us," Sixty-Six reasoned calmly. "No, this is a recent thing. And besides, we teleported away from the Leeches. There's no way they could've followed us through that. Right?"

"So we assume," I answered. One look at her told me she was trying her best to alleviate my mood. "Sorry, I… it's not hope I need now. It's solutions."

"In that case, I really do think my place is here to investigate this with you, not the expedition," she suggested in that cold monotone of hers that I'd gotten used to. "If that's alright with you, Commander."

My own plans would resist the change, but it made sense. "I really wanted you to be the one to bring back our first victory. There has to be at least one of my closest five on that mission," I explained. "I mean, all our sisters are certainly talented and capable but…"

"You need someone to be your eyes and ears," she completed my sentence. I didn't want to agree, because I knew how ridiculous it sounded. "Look at you being all proactive. I like this new you. You seem more… in-control."

She flashed me a crooked grin. "That's not what the others think. It probably looks like condescension to them," I huffed.

"'Course they think that. They don't understand what a difficult job it is that you do. Each of them have their own talents, their own skills. But you have all of them. You could do this all on your own if you tried. You're the big brain here, Sophia. The rest of us are just your arms and legs. And eyes and ears," she reassured me. "That's why Khaos chose you, isn't it? He had to manipulate all those Gods and Amaras to finally get a universe with you in it. It's you who's doing the difficult job of getting justice for all of us. Worse part is, they've all given up on themselves. It's you who's going to bring them salvation."

"You talk of them like they're less. It's not true," I shifted from one leg to another. "Each one of them is equally monumental in their own universes. Each one of them is important to me. I can't tell you how heart-breaking it is for me to even consider that they may not think the same of me. As much as I hate it, I have to account for the possibility." I took her silence as a lack of protest. "So you'll do it? Get back to the expedition?"

"No," she rejected. "Look," she sighed. "Your intentions are understandable. But I really do think you can afford to let this one team handle an expedition without sending a chaperone. Besides, the situation we have to deal with here is far more important, don't you think?"

"Fine, you can stay," I reluctantly conceded. Sometimes it was hard to tell with these things, especially from a big picture perspective, whether a decision was taking it too far or not. At least I had her input on this to give me some idea. "But what were you doing here anyway? You were supposed to be on the other side of the Omniverse."

"Same reason you've been walking down these halls, except I've been doing this longer than you," she confessed, snark crisp in her voice. "It's how I knew to warn you about undeserved trust."

"Consider me warned. I'll excuse everything so far, but you really shouldn't shirk your duties to spy on people," I stated cordially.

"Thy will be done," she replied with a matching decorum, though I suspected some of it was playful mockery.

And so time passed.


The Void – some time later

"Take her away!" I ordered. I had to be the strong one here, even when my insides wanted to crumble the moment I did so much as close my eyes. So I just kept them wide open, not even blinking. They were crying, gasping or even angry. I could understand all of that. Yet, for the life of me, I couldn't understand why. It was the question that pervaded my mind as I watched a sister carry the dead one away into the quarantine zone. Yes, it had become a zone of its own. The admission criteria? That same black spidery vein pattern. It wasn't just around the mouth now. It grew more vicious, spreading to the eyes, the nose and any area, really.

"That's the seventeenth one," Eighty solemnly reported from next to me. It was an unnecessary statement, really. We were all well-aware.

"We're working on an antidote," I announced to all who had gathered. "Just stay away from the quarantine zone."

"Do we know what's causing this?" one of them asked, eyes contorted with a piercing trepidation.

The questions never stop. The easy way would be to scare them all back into doing their work. But anyone with half the foresight could tell that archangels weren't made to be pushed around. Besides, I wanted answers too. "Unfortunately, the evidence is thin. It seems we are being plagued with some kind of infection, the source of which we aren't quite sure. This isn't like some bacteria, some fungus – growing where it can survive. This being is… malicious and out for grace," I answered to the best of my knowledge.

"So if you see anything suspicious," Sixty-Six spoke up from next to me. "Attack first—whatever it is, these obsidian blades we have are the best defence. Then report it to us."

I nodded. "Cauterising by heating these blades seem to stave off the infection. At least for a while. Still, it may not be a cure," I added. I saw hope once again return to their faces. An uncertain shift amongst them soon drove them to get back to what needed to be done. "Support Team Yud, report to Thirty-Seven. The first expedition team has made headway. Guide them as necessary."

"Wow, some good news, huh?" Sixty-Six nudged me, beaming, as the rest dispersed.

"Yes, but it is far overshadowed by grief," I found it difficult to bring myself to feel what she felt. At least I could consider her expression as one on my behalf, which was somewhat of an advantage to seeing my doppelgangers. I didn't need to do all this work or feel all these emotions myself if I had others to help me with exactly that. "A success might make their deaths mean something."

"Death never means anything," she said in response. I thought she might have been saying it just to mess with me, but this time, she was sobered to seriousness. "It just takes away from you, leaving you to feel emptier than before. It's like this first Key. What you lost, can't be replaced. There's no conservation. It's just… lost."

It was clear as day to me what she was talking about – it wasn't the death of our sisters. I squeezed her shoulder, giving her space without judgment. "You are stronger than I can ever know," I told her.

She gulped away anything that might have betrayed the undertone to our conversation to any onlookers. "The things we accomplish here can only build a new start for us all. But it can never fill the hole carved into us by pain," she said grimly. She took my hand away from her shoulder, held it for a second, and left me to my own thoughts.

I watched her approach and converse with the others, shifting from corner to corner, from niche to niche. She had certainly grown into her own from the first time we'd met. She seemed to have become more prosocial – an unexpected turn, really. If she could do it, perhaps Lucifer could too, I thought. Perhaps it was duty. Perhaps she had finally found purpose in helping me – she'd taken much initiative in deciding what needed to be done and delegating responsibilities with regards to things I just hadn't the capacity to attend to. I was grateful to have her, and the others, to take things off my plate. I was a little proud too, watching all of them now working like a well-oiled machine. No Queens, no dictators. Just a community. It almost felt like Heaven again. I huffed, chuckling to myself. Now there was an irony.

I sauntered over to the Interface. My ambivalent senses grew cautious again to see Forty-Two standing over it. As usual, her brows were crossed in deep concentration. "What's the status?" I asked.

"Their reports are coming in. It's just as you said – the symptoms are all there. The stars are barely luminescent. They're just not dense enough to produce enough light. They're constantly absorbing new energy but never having enough time to condense and become a stable source of nuclear fusion. One sister writes, 'The crucible of creation has spilt, and its effluent flows like a river that never stops.' This is clearly one of God's earlier drafts," she reported with increasing awe at every statement.

"A universe before thermodynamics. Surreal," I commented, browsing the same lines she did. One of the many monitors before us showed the visual input from the vessel we'd sent to that universe. It was breath-taking. Like they said, the stars weren't the firmly-shaped spheres we were used to. Their cores were far smaller, and they were surrounded by large, diffused light clouds interwoven with slender wisps that reached out like the dying in their last moments. What had seemed amazing at first soon appeared to me like the gasping breaths of a drowning child, except this child couldn't die – she had been abandoned to perpetual suffering.

Even stranger were the other tell-tale signs that this was the one. Planets surrounded these stars, sure. But as I watched the live feed, they torpedoed straight into the gravitational embrace of the star and disintegrated in its nuclear cloud into their meagre fragments. Somehow the mass of the star did not increase. Not even a single reading dared to blaspheme. The planets simply died. Lost forever.

"How is this universe still standing? It should be gone by now," I felt something of an unwarranted annoyance bubbling within me. "It's cannibalising itself."

"That's the thing. These conflict zones exist on a very fine line. None of them should exist. Yet something compensates for their neglect of the universal rules," Forty-Two further explained. "The chaos that plagues this universe is offset, just a little, by some semblance of order. See, the energy here is like a great storm…" she pointed where such strong gusts of energy could be seen flowing out of seemingly nowhere. "And here, the lowest energy forms are destroyed." The planets exemplified this. "There is overwhelming creation, but the smallest level of destruction maintains the equilibrium. Just enough that the chances of the universe exploding are reduced to the lowest level. It goes on for almost infinity. Emphasis on 'almost'."

That couldn't be good. Who knows what the backlash could be if everything fell apart? These conflict zones were clearly important. It troubled me deeply that the Keys of Conflict were in such delicate areas, which meant that extracting them would have to be delicate work. One wrong move and existence could collapse. Nothing would be left, except for the Void. Us and Khaos for all eternity. Yet another wave of existential crisis to deal with.

I advised surveillance and caution, and drifted towards other parts of the Omniverse that needed my attention. My days had been spent like this – attending to every aspect of this fragile operation. I helped out wherever I could, but never indulging myself completely in any activity because I needed to involve myself in everything. The team for the next mission was already preparing themselves in the same image as the first, using the same blueprints but modifying as necessary. The overwhelming success of the first launch had been a great motivator for sure, and it wasn't as obvious anywhere as it was here. I saw them actively communicating and assembling their craft with no need for guidance whatsoever. I helped with some crafting myself, driven to action by the mere pressure of their synergy. It eased some of my tension.

I revisited the other niches too and did my due diligence. Time could fly so fast in just one round of inspection. When the hallways grew sparse and noise kept its distance behind me, I arrived at the last stop. The edge of our territory, the known Omniverse. A single doppelganger of mine was stationed here at all times to guard the gates. We had other defences outside these walls, you see, which was why heavy manpower – womanpower, to be more exact – wasn't necessary and could be channelled to other means.

I planned to take my turn on the watch so my sister wouldn't feel so lonely. If you asked me, though, she seemed to prefer her solitude. I'd considered putting Sixty-Six on one of these shifts, but her sharp mouth had been more useful at my side. As I neared the wall, I spotted Nine sat against it with her legs pulled up to her chest. It must have gotten awfully boring here.

"If you'd like your talents used elsewhere, I'd be happy to help you negotiate a replacement with someone else," I said as I neared her. "This shouldn't be a punishment."

She looked up at me, bored as always. "No, I'm good," she dismissed. "I'm cool with it."

"You were cast out of your home too, right? What was it called? Huxar," I recalled, plopping down next to her. "And you became a free spirit."

She cast me an amused upturn of the lips. "Huxar was boring. I was glad to be out of there anyway. There was so much to see in so many places," she told me. "I never like intervening in anything, unlike all those dullards Mother made as siblings for me. The simple beauty of the world was made to be admired, watched. It was by doing that I developed this patience."

"Patience greater than any Amara would have had," I supported, much to her levity.

"Yes, I do have patience," she droned on in a relaxed pace. "Patience enough to keep away anything that might breach our walls. But I fear my patience in waiting for our kind to return is misgiven. Still, I waited for you and you came back. So I shall continue to have patience."

Though she seemed mostly unbothered, some inkling of darkness stood out to me in her voice. "What do you mean by that?"

"These patrols… they are getting lengthier and lengthier."

Melancholy. That's what this was. I snapped to attention. "When was the last time you let someone back in?"

"Hmph," she shrugged. "The last ones to return were Sisters Ninety-Three and Ninety-Four."

"That was six shifts ago," I realised with increasing apprehension. "How did I not notice them going missing?"

"Maybe they just ran into something like you did," Nine suggested. "They'll be back, right?"

My mind ran through every possibility. How could this have happened right under my nose? Even the first missing pair should have been a red flag. The records would have shown up on the monitors. The Interface. Forty-Two had been so preoccupied with the expedition. The standard maintenance numbers of our operation must have taken second place to making sure the expedition ran well. A grave oversight. Or a calculated one.

I knelt before Nine again, resting both my hands on her shoulders. "Be on the lookout. We may be expecting something," I ordered. Her eyes seemed too bereft of the keen, knowing malice that the others could at least be suspected of, which made me hesitate in revealing my thoughts. I needed her alert and doing her job, not flustered with concerns like I was. If anything happened, she had the giant alarm button to warn us all and seek safety.

Now each person I passed was a 'yes or no' question. You were either the last returning patrol, or you were not. And from my frantic search, everyone was a 'no'. Then I realised, there was one place I hadn't checked. The quarantine zone.

It was deep within the hallways gated by the infirmary, demarcated by a clear warning symbol – a giant glowing X on the opal floor. After all this time, the X was measly in comparison to the other hazard signs. The very air before me was a warning. Black spores floated about in the air, carefree, as if they didn't mean to end all of us in a horrible death. I surrounded my whole being in the white light of sizzling fire for protection as I ventured further.

The thing that most people don't realise about vacuums is that they are never truly empty. If nothing appears in a vacuum, your own deepest thoughts will. Distant screaming resembling mine rose to consciousness and faded away in a faint echo. That would have been impossible, considering everyone here was dead. They should have been resting in The Empty – another place we stayed away from for obvious reasons – but due to our security measures, it wasn't exactly possible. Nothing was supposed to be able to get in or go out of the Omniverse without our intention. This meant our dead could only reserve a place in The Empty but not completely get there. This place, the quarantine zone, was for the mirage of what was left of them. A final image downloaded into our memories before they were truly gone. A shell waiting to cross to the other side.

The rest of the Omniverse was generally well-lit on account of some unidentifiable light source, or our collective luminescence otherwise. But this place was engulfed in darkness. It was just my protective light bubble and the green beams of my laser eyes. I didn't need to dwell here for very long. I moved with purpose towards a small inventory room preceding the 'morgue'. There, a clipboard awaited me.

It was hard to feel like I wasn't being violated in some way by this all-consuming darkness. I set my discomfort aside and went through the clipboard. Ninety-Three. Ninety-Four. My symbolic heart skipped a beat in instant recognition. Found deceased.

This was impossible. Theirs were the chronologically first names on the list. They died first. That… couldn't be. I was there when the first one died of the infection. She was only—I scanned the list again—third. Who hid the bodies? And who recorded it here? Seemed counterintuitive.

I recalled the identity of every single person who could have been involved. The one who delegated the duty. The one who saw them leave. The one who saw them come back. The ones who were in the infirmary. Or worse than all of that, an intruder. God knows we'd made so many beings in the Void angry. Who could it be?

I was lost in these thoughts. I was absolutely dumbfounded. Someone's been making a fool of me.

The screaming appeared again, but this time more like a whizzing sound. It was fast but that had been enough to raise distinctly uncomfortable chills in my back. I waited a while. The feeling did not go away. It was perhaps at this moment I considered the chance that I wasn't as alone as I had thought. The clipboard quivered in my hands as I set it down. A cold caress slithered up my spine. I flinched and spun abruptly. Nothing but darkness stared back at me. Even as I stepped out into the vacant hallway to confirm my solitude, I could not shake the uncanny sense that something had breached my barrier of light.

I stood one step away from the X. Before me was a path to what was most surely safety.

"I am a storm coming."

The whispers sliced through the air. It sent a great shudder through me. I knew His voice well, every timbre and colour of it. Fortunately, I also knew He wasn't here. Otherwise, He might not make such threats.

When I returned to the Omniverse, everything I'd seen and heard shed away from me. Here, I was Sophia the Commander again. The time had come around for me to oversee the expedition though this time, I was determined to dedicate more time to it. I approached the Interface again. Forty-Two seemed to have taken a break. She was nowhere to be seen. Not thinking much of it, I took over her station.

Everything seemed to be going fine so far, so I turned off one of the live feeds from the expedition vessel. Instead, I resumed the earlier program which routinely updated our local systems. And there was the kicker. The personnel logs surfaced. Everyone who'd ever left and returned to the Omniverse was listed here. The shocking absence of six pairs in the 'returned' column could not have just gone unnoticed. It was deliberately neglected.

"I didn't know you were back," a voice greeted.

I turned around to see Forty-Two rapidly approaching. "There were things I needed to see," I coldly said, anticipating confrontation. Instead, she buzzed past me and got to working on the Interface again. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"There's been some kind of mistake," she didn't even look at me. She punched some more buttons and different visuals showed up. One I recognised to be a map of our immediate surrounding territory. Once it showed up and she'd interpreted what was on the screen, a quiet dread forced her to take a step back. "This can't be."

She seemed absolutely paralysed by what was on the screen. Now I was intrigued too. "What is it?"

"It- it says…" she pointed. "It says the ocular matrix is live."

Khaos' eyes. The nauseating implication of that sentence was beginning to drive me into catatonia too. In the silence, I heard footsteps rushing about. The others were responding to something. But I was still glued to the screen. "But… but we disabled it," I weakly protested. "This- this is impossible."

"We may have to assume it is possible right now," Forty-Two's head craned towards me slowly. All I saw in her wide green irises was impending doom.

BOOM. A thunderous roar shook the ground beneath us. I scrambled to hold onto the Interface for support. Please, let this be a joke. A siren screeched its cry for help. I heaved for breath as I slowly stood up. It was the alarm from the gate. Through my quaking vision, I saw other warnings pop up on the screen. Shock was no longer an option. I made the announcement. "Code Red! Assume positions!"

There was an emergency plan, but that was no relief on its own. The others took their place guarding various vulnerable points in the Omniverse. As for me, I flew down the hallway, taking the fast route to the gate. I appeared in a flash. The red alarm pulsated on the wall, just above the button that had been pushed. And below yet, a body prone on the floor. Sister Nine.

I turned her over. "Sister, you must get up," I called out. Once her face came to face up, it was all gone. A black wispy trail told me all I needed to know. Another one gone.

Looking past her, my vision was led to none other than a door blasted open. Smoke billowed in from beyond in a mysterious stream.

I felt the others approaching me as reinforcements. Forty-Two was one of them. Still, I didn't dare take my eyes off the door. "Alpha has regained His sight," she spoke the dreaded truth to me. "Our defences are failing."

"No, child…" A large black figure stepped through, His every limb muscular and His head embedded with antlers sticking out. "They're succeeding at failing."