BM - Chapter 20 - The Ancient Ones
"Wh-What are you talking about?!" Ina questioned her former patron. The blob shifted, seeming to think about their next set of words.
"This place lacks perfection. We are going to restore that. Our offer is that you come with us to witness it," they said. Ina looked back at her friends. All of them had grimaces on their faces, not liking what the Ancient Ones were saying one bit.
'Listen to us!' AO-chan yelled in her head. Ina rubbed her temples, still adjusting to the new beings in her mind. 'They want to corrupt this timeline! Use that watch again and get out of here!' The Ancient Ones began to laugh, drawing Ina's attention away from the voices in her head.
"You really think that is all we are going to do here? Running to a different timeline will not save your Priestess," they boomed, somehow hearing AO-chan in Ina's head. Ina felt her jaw fall open slightly, completely at a loss for words.
"What the fuck do you mean by that?!" Calliope screamed from behind her. The Ancient Ones slowly stopped laughing.
"This is your last chance, Priestess. Accept our offer or face oblivion." Calliope lowered herself to the ground with Gura and Kiara following her movement. All three got ready to attack, but Ina put out her hand to stop them.
"You're going to destroy not only this timeline, but all of them?" Ina asked. The Ancient Ones again chuckled to themselves.
"We are not going to destroy this dimension. We are going to perfect it," they responded. Ina clenched her hand into a fist.
"Why?"
"It seems that even other versions of ourselves can not comprehend our reasoning, so you would not be able to either. Final chance." Ina balled both her hands into fists now and clenched her teeth. Her entire demeanor changed to one of unfiltered rage.
"FUCK YOU! YOU'RE NOT DESTROYING MY TIMELINE!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. The Ancient Ones sighed.
"How naive…" Ina jumped at them, followed quickly by Gura, Calliope, and Kiara. All four of them only had one goal in mind: to kill the Ancient Ones.
None of them would get close enough. Thousands of magic circles opened in between them and their target. Spells of all varieties began to pour out towards them, Tentacles, Hands, Beams, Blasts, Barriers, you name it.
Kiara and Calliope dodged the best they could, but were hit multiple times and fired into the ground at high speed. Ina shielded herself and Gura, but the spells broke through and launched them too into the ground. Amelia ran over to where her friends had landed.
The Ancient Ones wound up a finishing attack, raising an enormous tentacle above them and driving it into the group of girls. It never made contact with the ground though, instead traveling straight through it.
Amelia Watson held both her hands high above her, trying to stay conscious through the ordeal. She Destabilized the tentacle the instant it touched her and made it pass through her and her friends. The Ancient Ones retracted their tentacle back into themselves.
"Even though it might not seem like it at first glance, you were always the most troublesome one, time traveler," they said before pushing themselves up into the air with more tentacles, "No matter, try as you might, there is no hope in stopping us now." They flew through the air and landed directly on top of the building housing the Crystal of Time.
The building crumbled underneath their weight. After a few moments of them sitting on top of it, a bright white dome formed around them. Within moments, they were completely hidden beneath this new veil. A low rumbling could be felt and heard from within. Amelia specifically could feel the intense energy emanating out of the dome.
Kiara and Calliope got up quickly, while Amelia helped both Ina and Gura back to their feet. All five girls stared at the dome with unyielding hatred.
"Calli, call for help," Amelia said, trying to think as rationally as possible. The Reaper took the one remaining phone out of a shadow. No one knew where Ina's phone had gone, but it was likely that it had been destroyed in the Ancient Ones' outburst earlier. The Reaper shook her head, meaning that she couldn't get through. There was too much energy in the air around them. Maybe if they got far enough away, but that meant leaving whatever the Ancient Ones were doing all alone.
'We're so sorry that we couldn't warn you all in time…' AO-chan said within Ina's head, 'but we will help in whatever way we can.' It struck Ina as odd that AO-chan was speaking as though the rest of her friends could hear them. But when she looked up at them, it made sense as to why.
"Ina, why are there words floating above your head?" Kiara asked, pointed just above the top of Ina's head. Ina looked up above her and saw there were indeed purple, glowing words floating above her head. They read the exact words that AO-chan had just said to her.
"Looks like they want to talk to you guys, too," Ina mumbled. Her mind was a complete mess, trying to put together what had just happened.
'The other Ancient Ones have been planning this for a long time. They told us one night, trying to-' AO-chan was interrupted when Amelia spoke up.
"Why the fuck do you get to explain any of this to us, huh?!" she yelled at them, "You tried to corrupt my Ina and nearly killed at least a dozen other people!" Calliope went over and put a hand on Amelia's shoulder.
"Let's hear them out. The enemy of my enemy is my friend," she said to her. Amelia crossed her arms and continued to look pissed off, but didn't make any more attempts to interrupt AO-chan.
'When we found out, they tried to convince us to assimilate with them. This would allow them to overload the Priestess' mind and gain control.' Ina recoiled slightly at this notion.
"But they said that I could handle both versions."
'You would be able to, but if they did it fast enough it would force you into a situation like the one you were just in,' they explained.
"So you were the reason Ina passed out," Kiara said darkly. The words above Ina's head quickly shifted.
'We did not invade Ina's mind. The other version of us dragged us in and forced it to happen.' Kiara clicked her tongue and continued to frown.
"This all sounds incredibly interesting, but what is their plan and how do we stop it?" Calliope asked very directly.
'They are planning on corrupting every available timeline retroactively. This means that they won't split, but instead be overwritten.' Amelia gasped. This sounded an awful lot like what she'd done to her timeline accidentally.
"But that'll cause everything to Destabilize before they get the chance," Amelia pointed out the flaw she saw.
'That only occurs if you don't provide enough energy to maintain the stability of the timeline. They have a lot of energy within them to prevent that.'
"But they would run out eventually and be sent back into their pocket dimension," Ina said.
'As they spread across timelines, some versions will start the process over again. As long as they spread faster than they stop, the corruption will never end.'
"The Council will never allow this. They will step in and stop them," Calliope said. AO-chan sighed.
'Let me explain their entire plan from start to finish. You all have a couple hours to prepare before the runaway effect is in full swing,' they said. All five girls paid close attention to what they said next, 'The last time they tried something like this, the Council did stop them. This was because they only tried from one point in the timeline. By spreading like a virus, they can avoid this. They just have to fly under the radar for long enough to get the process started.'
"That's what the dome is for…" Amelia commented.
'Indeed. In order to get this process started they needed access to both the Crystal of Time and Αγνότητα. They realized that their current situation, being stuck in a vessel they couldn't control, made them look harmless. So they used that fact to get close to you all and get access to both the Crystal and Αγνότητα without needing to find it.'
"But how could they have known that I would want to go back in time to look at my past?" Ina asked.
'Your memories were sealed away by them. They wanted to have the option of manipulating you with them, and that is exactly what ended up happening.' Ina's mouth fell wide open. She put her head into her hands and stared into her palms. She had been getting manipulated from the start…
"But if Pure Flow, Αγνότητα, could be created here, too, then why go to Atlantis?" Gura asked.
'They didn't know that it could be created here. Instead, they went to where they knew it was and examined it. They found out that it was created by combining both fire and water magic and then passing it through some catalyst. They assumed then that the catalyst would be the Crystal here. After that, they continued to manipulate our Priestess until she accidentally set off the defenses. The ensuing accident made sure that the next visit to the Hatchery would be carefully planned out.'
"They planned this all out…" Amelia mumbled. There was one thing left unaccounted for though, "What about me? How could they have known that I would show up?"
'That we do not know. However, it is likely that they played a part in your parent's deaths, sending you on the path that leads to this place.'
Amelia suddenly became very aware of how fast her heart was beating. Her skin tightened on her body and everything felt too close now. Everything made sense now…
"My parents dying… Johnny just barely surviving and giving me instructions… The Droplet sending me here…" she said, shaking with every word. Calliope tightened her grip on Amelia's shoulder.
"Calm down, Amelia. We're all here for you," she said as nicely as possible. Gura latched onto Amelia's other arm and rubbed her face against it.
"The book must have been planted by them, too…" Ina realized, pulling her head out from her hands, "All of this was set up by them… We got played!" she smacked a tentacle into the ground, kicking up a lot of dust.
"Hey, Ancient Ones…" Amelia said through her shaking, "How do we kill these fuckers?" The floating words reorganized themselves.
'You must stop them from providing the Crystal with energy. It will lead to this timeline collapsing, but you all can escape by using the time watch,' they explained. Amelia took multiple deep breaths to steady herself. She stopped shaking and looked at the rest of the girls around her.
"Let's make a plan."
The five girls of HoloMyth stood in front of the white dome. The energy radiating from it made them begin to reconsider their entire plan.
"Are we sure that we can even get through this?" Kiara asked, still wary of the last time she tried something with this dome. Amelia nodded, staring intensely at it.
"This is not the same barrier as before. It is most likely just a cloak or maybe even a portal somewhere else. That phenomenon of pushing things into other timelines is happening inside…" Amelia answered.
"Wait, if they have access to the Crystal in there, could they use it against us?" Calliope asked, looking over at Gura, Ina, and Kiara. Herself and Amelia would be fine in such an instance, but the other three wouldn't. Amelia shook her head.
"They've trapped themselves in that dome, completely cutting them off from any other timelines. They probably want to avoid any uncertainty in their actions. Plus, it decreases the chance that the Council would find them," Amelia explained, "That also means that we can beat them once and for all in there. No other timelines to worry about." Calliope turned back to the dome, satisfied with the answer she had been given.
"Alright, one more time. Myself and Kiara are on the attack. Gura and Ina, you two are in the middle, providing support to us and defending Amelia. Amelia, you're going to work on destroying whatever this thing is, so we can leave when we're finished," Calliope said, gesturing to the dome in front of them.
All the other girls nodded, understanding their roles in the plan. "And don't do anything stupid," Calliope specifically called out Kiara, "In there, neither of us can come back." Kiara swallowed back any nervousness and nodded slowly.
Amelia carefully approached the dome, placing her hand lightly on its exterior. She felt a sensation similar to trying to put two magnets of the same poles together. Her hand was being repulsed away, but not nearly as strongly as before. She pushed until the dome gave way and her hand slipped inside.
Once her hand was inside, the repulsion quickly changed to attraction. Her wrist, forearm, and soon her entire arm were sucked inside. She pulled against it to remain outside for a moment longer.
"It takes a bit of pushing, but you can get in!" she said to her friends, struggling to keep her body outside of the dome. The rest of the girls approached and followed what she had done. They all got their arms sucked in, too. Kiara and Gura were fully sucked in first.
"I-I'm sorry!" Ina yelled out with most of her body already sucked in.
"What are you apologizing for?" Calliope asked calmly. She didn't need to struggle since she could just let parts of her body travel through and let the others remain on this side.
"For causing all of this! I-It's all my fault!" Amelia started to chuckle before breaking into a total laugh. Ina looked at her with betrayal.
"None of this is your fault, Ina!" she called back to her friend, "Let's kill the bastards that actually caused all of this!" Ina nodded and smiled lightly before getting sucked through. Calliope stared at Amelia, looking like she had something to say.
"None of this is your fault either, Amelia," she said. Amelia glanced back at the massive hole in the ground and then back at Calliope. She sighed and let the dome begin to pull her through.
"Let's try our best, Calli," she said just before passing through, "and make it back in one piece." Calliope followed her in.
Once inside, all five girls tried to get their bearings. They were in some kind of white void, with the floor being made out of a translucent white, glossy material. Off in the distance, they could see a purple glow. They all looked at each other and nodded silently. That was where they were going.
The glow got brighter as they approached until it became obvious that it wasn't just a glow. Now that they were closer, they saw that underneath the bright purple glow was a pulsating mass of purple flesh. It made Ina and Amelia gag at the sight of it. Kiara and Gura entered battle stances, ready for what might come next.
"It is nice of you all to walk in here so willingly," the Ancient Ones greeted. Several tentacles sprouted from the main body with several more coming from nearby clouds of purple mist. At the ends of the tentacles, fingers and then hands formed from the flesh.
"They have a barrier surrounding them," Ina analyzed. Kiara nodded.
"We need to get through it to have any hope of hurting them," she surmised. Gura agreed with her with a grunt.
"We are not quite sure that it is a good idea to talk about how you plan on killing us when we are right here," the Ancient Ones taunted.
"Our plan is to fucking kill you!" Amelia screamed at them. For the first time since she'd met Ina, the image of her dad getting impaled and her mom getting struck with a spell. The Ancient Ones had been behind everything…
She was going to make sure that stopped here.
Gura and Kiara screamed their battlecries and leapt at the shield surrounding the Ancient Ones. Neither the trident nor the sword hit with enough force to break through. However, it did bend more than they expected. On their ways back down to the ground, they cut through several tentacles trying to intercept them.
"Interesting…" No one besides Calliope had seen Kiara this analytical before. In the heat of battle, the Phoenix was in her element.
"Kusotori, don't…" Calliope warned. Once Kiara landed, she flipped over to Calliope and flashed her crush with a cheeky smile.
"You know I'm not good at holding back!" she cheered before reaching down to her belt and tearing it off. She was engulfed in an orange light that grew to a bright blue. Ina and Amelia could feel the heat from several dozen yards away. Calliope sighed.
"That you aren't…"
The Ancient Ones slammed several tentacles on top of Kiara, trying to smother her flame. Those tentacles were burnt away when she launched herself straight upwards into the air. Massive wings and a beak formed out of the flames.
The bright, glowing form of a true Phoenix made itself evident.
"What the hell…" Amelia said, completely at a loss for words.
"This is her true form when she isn't containing herself. It burns through magic like hell, though, so let's back her up!" Calliope summoned her scythe and motioned to attack. Ina swore she could feel the Ancient Ones grow excited.
Gura channeled as much Primal as she dared before leaping into battle with Calliope right next to her. Kiara swooped in from above them and slammed one of her wings into the barrier. It gave way with little resistance. Her wing cut a large gash in the pulsating flesh of the Ancient Ones. Calliope and Gura cut their way through several tentacles before getting in their own hits.
Kiara flew back around, but instead of another wing attack she opened her flaming beak and let loose an intense beam of fire. It was directed straight into the middle of the swirling Ancient Ones, right where the Crystal should be.
But it wasn't there.
She was displeased with her aim, seemingly missing her target by a lot. Several tentacles and beams forced her into a more defensive position.
"This doesn't feel right…" Amelia mumbled to herself. Ina, who was standing right next to her incase she needed defense, looked over at her confused.
"What are you saying?" she asked. It didn't look like anything was wrong to her. Sure, she felt something was off, just like Amelia had said, but the fight was going smoothly so far. Kiara had gotten in a few more good hits and Calliope and Gura were steadily ripping into the main body.
"They said that I'm the most problematic one… And this is too easy…" Amelia continued to mumble, watching the battle unfold in front of her. Everyone had expected a much harder fight going into this. That was the weirdest thing about the current situation to Amelia.
"Are you saying this is a trap?" Ina asked her more specifically. Amelia took a large breath and ran her hand over her nose and mouth, thinking about any possible reason for her feeling uneasy. There had to be something that they were missing here…
She looked at the floor and saw a hint of purple underneath it. It was far below them, swinging around in almost random directions. Amelia knew better now then to think of the Ancient Ones as random, though. She put her own hand on the floor and felt it move around it. Her hand sank into the ground, allowing her to leave the pocket dimension they were in. Her eyes went wide.
"Guys, get away from them! They're up to something!" Amelia screamed at the three girls who were still carving away at the Ancient Ones' flesh. None of them could hear her over their raging bloodlust. Ina immediately took a defensive stance, ready for whatever Amelia was warning about.
Gura and Kiara suddenly jerked and began screaming. One of the Phoenix's massive wings was torn clean off and the Atlantean's clothes became stained with her blood. Calliope looked up at Kiara, who was now falling to the ground, and called out for her.
This lapse in judgment would cost her, though. A sharp, quick tentacle attempted to rip out her soul. Only with her quick reflexes and sharp instincts did she avoid it. However, the tentacle did manage to graze her soul, causing unimaginable pain to flood through her as well.
"When every timeline is at your disposal, anything is possible."
Gura and Calliope leapt backwards away from the Ancient Ones, fighting through their respective pain to put as much distance between them and their attacker as possible. Ina helped in their retreat by blasting away several tentacles and deflecting a beam. Kiara landed on the ground hard and desperately began to struggle to her feet.
"I-It almost got my soul," Calliope stuttered. Her body didn't feel much pain, but when her soul gets hit she can really feel it. Pain to her was an overwhelming sensation. Gura had cuts all over her body and was covering a particularly bad wound on her upper right arm.
"They got me pretty good, too…" she wheezed, taking deep breaths to stabilize herself. Ina began to cover any open wounds with a purple slime. She could at least stop Gura from bleeding out…
"How the hell can then… INA!" Amelia stopped her thinking and screamed in terror. Ina snapped her vision to Amelia, who was pointing up above them. A massive tentacle, at least ten times bigger than any she had ever created, hung in the air straight above them all.
"Go ahead, phase through this one!" The Ancient Ones let the tentacle fall. Amelia knew that there was no hope of her Destabilizing herself and her friends through it. If the Ancient Ones could affect time like she could, that meant they could attack from several timelines simultaneously and prevent her from phasing through it.
Just before the massive tentacle would have crushed the group, Kiara found her footing and dashed underneath it. With all of the strength left in her body, she held it up to let her friends escape. None of them wasted this opportunity, scurrying out from under certain death.
With one last scream, Kiara burnt away most of the tentacle in a brilliant fireball.
"Ah, finally…" Kiara's fire suddenly burnt out, leaving only her weaker, humanoid form in its wake. She collapsed to the ground, covered in deep wounds. Her entire left forearm had been severed, as well. She had her clothes on surprisingly, but they were torn up pretty badly. Her consciousness was waning, but she barely held on through the pain.
"Kiara!" Gura and Calliope screamed at the same time. Both dashed in to grab their friend, but a magic circle appeared before they could reach her.
"You should have tried this hard in every timeline!" the Ancient Ones said, reveling in their apparent victory. However, just before they could unleash the beam to finish off Kiara, it vanished.
The spell simply ceased to exist. They tried to make another, but it too fizzled away. Gura and Calliope grabbed Kiara and pulled her away from her attacker.
"So that's how they did that…" Amelia said quietly, her hand sinking below the floor. She could feel something rushing by her hand on the other side. It carried other timelines and possibilities with it. The Ancient Ones were using that to get around the limitation of their only being one timeline in this dimension.
"We did say you are the most troublesome one," they realized what Amelia was up to. The time traveler felt her hold on the other timelines slip. She tried to hold on to them, but they became harder and harder to grasp and pull on.
"They haven't been taking us seriously. All of their effort has been directed towards finding a timeline where they have already beaten us into the ground…" Amelia said, worriedly. She grabbed Kiara and tried to find a timeline where she hadn't had her arm taken off.
The normally clean timescape she felt when searching was not so clean anymore. It was a jumbled mess of timelines that criss crossed in every direction. They squirmed around like worms in the rain. She couldn't get a good enough hold on any of them to bring them into this one.
"Amelia, you take Kiara and help her back to her feet. Me, Gura, and Ina will try to keep them occupied. You need to find a way to stop them from messing with the timelines here," Calliope commanded. Amelia nodded, looking down at the translucent floor again.
"R-Right," Amelia responded. She began to help Kiara to her feet. The Ancient Ones laughed at the group's so-called 'attempts' at resistance so far.
"If you hope our offer still stands, Ina'nis, we can assure you it does not," they goaded. Ina stood up, having finished tending to Gura's wounds. Her eyes would've matched the Primal Atlantean's if they could change color like that. Every ounce of her being was filled with hatred for her once patrons. To think she had trusted them…
"Gura," she said with a cold tone that nearly matched Calliope's, "don't worry about us. Go kill them."
The final safety pin was removed from the living weapon that was Gawr Gura. She closed her eyes and reached deep into her soul. When they opened again, her eyes turned a crimson red, matching the blood that stained her clothes and hair. She looked completely different compared to the bratty, stubborn girl she had been only an hour ago.
"Don't complain about what happens next!" she said with the full power of Primal flooding her body now.
Author's Note: Now the cards are truly out on the table! The Ancient Ones have been plotting in the background this whole time. Their plan has been the true driving force behind the entire series thus far. Amelia's parents' deaths, Ina meeting Gura and wanting to help her, Calliope and Kiara being lead to join Hololive, Ina going back in time to see her past, and so much more has been caused by their manipulation. I've been waiting to reveal this forever and now I finally can!
The Ancient Ones don't really have a deep morally ambiguous motivation that has set them on this path, but I don't really think they need one. This story has always been about the characters of HoloMyth and how they deal with ever changing circumstances, not the Ancient Ones' manipulation.
The climatic fight against the Ancient Ones in now underway! Everyone needs to figure out ways to properly be of use in this fight. It is going to take the efforts of all five combined to even get a chance at winning. These Ancient Ones are not the same as the ones Ina fought previously.
By the way, I'm doing something fun with the chapter names going forwards. See if you can figure it out :)
Next Chapter: Fighting for the Right to Survive
Any feedback/criticism is appreciated!