Jaune'Arc - Hafh'drn ot N'gha Tharanak

by Gavenga323

It wasn't supposed to be here. But it was here, inside his head. It always had been. Now Jaune has to go around the world hunting that which only he understands. But it could be worse, at least he didn't have to wait for the stars to align. 'Ain't that right, Nyarlathotep' 'You gave yourself this job, boy, don't look at me in that tone of voice.' M for violence, language & CTHULHU!

1. Chapter 1

Something was wrong...

The being stirred, as if roused from a deep slumber. That It was capable of doing so at all was the problem. It shouldn't have been able to wake. It was supposed to be dead, done and gone. It and endless other species. This was fact. Its great dance was supposed to be over. It had played its part, had brought fear, and madness, and chaos, and joy, and It had delighted in doing so. Those other species, puppets, the canvas of which to practice Its art, had shown true to Its work, killing, crying, laughing, fighting, dancing and dying until the very last second, and It had enjoyed that It had been there for all of it, watching and waiting up to the final moment.

If they had been aware, no doubt that there would have been a great many names for what happened. They would have called it The End, The Great Suicide, Oblivion's Embrace, The Sundering, or, from those less eloquent, the Death of the Universe.

All creatures, both the pitiful and the proud, the meek and the extraordinary, were made equal in the End. Like simple insects and larger, more complex pests in the eyes of a farmer. It mattered not who or what they were, for all were exterminated. Most would have wondered how; they were not privy to the mind-shattering secrets of reality like so little few. They knew not what terrible and revolting thing lay at the center of existence, the chaotic and maddening mass that slumbered, idiotic and ignorant of all that was conjured from, and lived through, its cryptic, evil, and alien dreams.

The Blind Idiot God.

The Daemon Sultan.

Azathoth, the God of All.

It was He that unknowingly twisted and molded the fabrics of reality, that spawned every strain of life in, between, and outside of the stars. Since a time before even the conceiving of demonic things that writhed, wailed, and murdered in dark places, Azathoth, that swirling corrupted mass of not-quite-flesh, had unwittingly overshadowed all that was. Galaxies swirled, and life birthed and died, all at his oblivious and nearly nonexistent will. It was a reality resulting from his corrupted dormancy that had existed for thousands of known aeons and had done so for even more unrecorded and unknown.

And then, in one fateful and fatal moment, it had all come crashing down. Those who knew the Truth, like the waking entity, knew just exactly how the apocalypse had come to pass. Really, it had started off so exceedingly simple. The Great Dreamer had slept, surrounded by his demonic entourage that danced to that haunting tune of the impossible pipe the size of a galaxy. And then, with a great shuddering and wheezing prelude, the God had shifted and belched out a hideous roar. For the duration of that call, any and everything that could fly, crawl, swim, or shuffle about had entered a perfectly violent frenzy of madness, killing, maiming, and raping that had lasted for years, for centuries.

And when the deranged debauchery had reached its peak, and xeno societies destroyed themselves in the quintillions, they were all stopped, frozen in the midst of their euphoria as the great being murmured and sighed.

And everything simply came undone. There were no screams, no evil fanfare, everything had been petrified, stuck in place, mid-murder, and in strife. Everything, from the great swaths of black emptiness that is space, to the lowliest atom, had simply perished, shredded apart by unseen forces, and then the Great Dreamer had simply imploded and died. It could have taken the barest millionth of a second, it could have taken millennia. The duration could never have been measured. Time had been amongst the first casualties in the existential slaughter.

Why Azathoth had committed cosmic genosuicide was a mystery known only to himself, and perhaps even the absolute horror may not have known. One does not earn a title with the moniker of Idiot for nothing. If he did know his reason for ending, then the answer died with him. Now, the only knowledge remaining was that the Sultan had died, and everything else died as a result.

The being that had recently woke was not Azathoth. Just one of his unlimited creations, one of his blasphemous children spawned without his knowing. A child conceived in a dizzying heartbeat and the twitch of slimy dream soaked feelers of astronomical length. Like only a handful of twisted minds, It knew exactly the events transpiring, and like those fewer than even that number, It welcomed the cataclysm with an open and blackened heart. As the universe creaked and groaned, and as everything from galaxies to atoms were shredded and decimated, and as time itself was erased and raped into oblivion, and as It felt sharp, terrible, and sensual pain for the first time in Its life, It sighed in blissful relief, knowing that It's timeless performance was over.

So why?

Why was It awake? Alive? Did It not deserve the same end wrought upon the others literally too numerous to count? Why? Why was It here!?

Where is here!?

The entity observed, searching Itself and everything around It for answers.

The first thing noted by the being was that it lacked a corporeal form. It was just… there. Invisible and untouchable, a scent on the wind. It was a situation neither helpful nor hampering. It had taken forms just the same millions- no, billions- of times prior, and was altogether too used to being in such a state.

The second thing noted was Its surroundings. A cavern, deep and wide, with a platform suspended over a dark chasm. Its artificial nature was not lost on the entity. Upon it lay a pathway decorated by a succession of three etched circles with unknown symbols leading up to a jagged stone wall, above which sat a large glowing tree. Nestled in the center was a primitive portal. What lay on the other side of it, the Thing could not say, the entity had been reduced to a most disgustingly narrow and lowly point of view, a fact that was only just registered with much distaste.

It would appear that from the nothingness that had claimed everything, something was born. Whether it was the result of a new all-powerful cosmic deity or something else entirely, that remained to be seen. The previously dead being was alien to this new reality, and therefore in the dark.

It was the third observation though, that gave It pause, a pause of concern that rapidly grew in intensity. Fear and uncertainty began to cloud over. Unknown emotions, foreign and evil. Did it feel-?

It couldn't be...

The thing waited.

And waited.

And waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.

Itwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedandwaitedand-

It waited.

A squeal of horror burst from a nonexistent mouth.

Time! It could feel Time! How!? Why could It feel Time moving and not do or change anything about it?

A despairing cry of anguish rose up at the sudden realization. It knew why.

Back then, in the Old Life, It had been born of Azathoth's flesh, the Daemon Sultan's blood and hallucinations. Here, in this new place, It did not have this royal blessing. It was different. An old program for a system that had no way to integrate Its code. Oh, It still held power, but it was a physical kind, unique to Itself, and it would never compare to the time-altering blessing of being the Nuclear Chaos' kin while he had unknowingly reigned supreme.

The cry subsided to a moan of hopelessness.

Time. What a cruel and callous thing! How heavy and perceptible it was! How burdening and detestable! Is this what lesser lifeforms felt all their shriveled and inconsequential lives? To feel as if it was being controlled, directed, and digested by a greater and apathetic force? It was terrible!

To be shackled to the form of a fourth dimensional specter...

How weird and horrible it was!

More than that though, it was… infuriating...

Like the changing of a breeze, emotions of a foreign mind shifted, and anger, deep anger, eldritch and ancient, flooded Its entirety. What twisted game was this!? It's existence was not one to be so limited! So elementary! It was made to be greater! Its reach without ending! Time was supposed to be just another path that it could cross around and through with ease! At Its whim, millennia could pass in the blink of a demonic eye, the smallest fraction of a second stretched out for eternity for amusement's sake! Time was treated like the civilizations that destroyed themselves and each other in fear of Its name! After all, was Its name not-!

…

Not…

...

It was…

...

An emotion congruent with confusion bubbled through.

What was Its name? Why couldn't It remember? It knew what it had done before. It knew where it had gone, had seen.

The entity's confusion gave way to annoyance. It could hazard a guess.

It would seem that time, as damnable as it was now that it was out of control, had passed. A long time. A very long time. So great and deep a stretch as to have killed Its memories. Not much of them, but not an unnoticeable amount either. Now, here It floated, impossible and nameless. How frustrating it was, to be the owner of a dead name. Maybe the memory would come back to life? No, it most likely would. Hopefully. Memories were fickle things.

The being contemplated, then carried on. No point in musing on titles. It would come back, eventually. It might as well continue… investigating. It sputtered in brief agony at the idea of having to perform a task so menial, before shoving the depressing thought away to study the platform again. Could it discern much? Not really. Three dimensions just didn't provide enough information to learn from.

It's attention shifted to the door. While probably advanced for some lesser species, it was still so crude and basic. Horrendously euclidean, really. The size, shape, and designs on it gave next to nothing in information.

It paused, suddenly aware of a detail that It had missed before. A closer inspection was needed to confirm Its suspicions.

Drawing closer did nothing to give any physical information, aside from enhancing the markings on it and revealing that the door appeared to be made of primitive fans interlocked with each other. A… unique approach. Even with the maker's creative liberties however, the thing's function was just too simple. What It could tell examining the admittedly elaborate-looking door though, was that there was more to it than just being a physically observable barrier. Something beyond the scope and scale of time-locked insects. What made it so?

It clicked a moment later.

Ah. Yes.

Superphysical art was at work here, a fact that, despite its nature hampering the entity's sight, comforted the Thing. Superphysics was so much easier to understand and work with. Regular physics hurt to just think about; a dull, aching, and groaning pain that rubbed and chafed Its conscience.

It didn't like that kind of pain. It didn't like any pain, save for the fiery and consuming ecstasy brought on by the Sundering. It much preferred the more comfortable barrier to the hurtful scenery. And so, It examined said barrier. The work done was, in a growing trend, simple. Obviously, the species responsible for it was not very advanced in superphysical magics either.

It floated up to the magic wall. Such a straightforward thing, it was sure to be overpowered easily. And so, It moved forward.

An infrasound crackle broke the silence of the cavern, and the Entity was sent gliding back, rippling and sputtering from the harsh contact.

The echo of the noise slowly faded away, soundwaves crashing and bouncing off vast stone walls until they lost intensity and died in flight, and silence reigned once more.

At first, there was no response.

Then, came disbelief.

That… shouldn't have happened...

A second attempt was made, which was met with the same result. A third attempt shortly followed, closely chased by a fourth.

Disbelief swiftly turned into rage.

Repelled!? By a… a.. fourth dimensional creature's magic!?

Impossible!

The Entity proceeded to throw itself against the barrier, again and again, each failure only increasing the depths of Its anger. How long did it try? A few minutes? Days? The feeling of time was so new, and the Thing's anger so great that it had no way of knowing, let alone measuring, the continuous and controlling river it was now forced into.

And still, the invisible wall held.

The being did not know what creatures had made this shield, but whatever had had veritably earned Its ire. To think that the sorceries of what was, in comparison, a microorganism could repel the great and horrible-!

Once more, the entity was reminded of Its selective amnesia, further souring Its mood. Yet a few more attempts followed, before It ceased in Its quest.

It sat in place, fuming. Rarely was victory denied to the entity, especially from an inanimate object. Well, if It couldn't win one battle against a damned door, then It would do Its damnedest to win one that It could. Everything in the universe, at least in the old one, had a name. From surprisingly superintelligent gurgles to hideously stupid numbers. It would sooner rot sealed in a bottle on display for disgusting degenerate parasites then drift on a Nameless Thing. Forget waiting on an eventuality, It wanted that small victory now.

And so, the entity searched Itself. It sought deep and long, filtering through the memories of incalculable ages. It saw, many times, the glowing birth of stars, swirling gases clumping together little by little, growing in size and mass till the very pressure of its weight coupled with the ever present radiation of space fused two atoms together, setting off a chain reaction visible for lightyears. It saw rocks, tiny and useless, follow that same route before branching off to forge a different path, creating stable and ever shifting planets that danced around and leeched off their larger gaseous neighbors. It had seen thousands of those stars die, expanding in their destructive magnificence to swallow their parasites, delighting in the profound taste and transforming into those powerful and reality-warping beasts that roamed the black, eternally hungry and devouring all, even light and time.

It saw creatures, large and small, beautiful and grotesque, all of them beneath It. Slaving and dancing away for purposes nonexistent, self-conjured in their own minds to cope with how meaningless they really were. It saw them give in to whispers of things from the void, things best left nameless, and It watched them murder themselves into oblivion through war, torture, and self-inflicted viruses, watched as entire worlds burned to radioactive ash, dissolved into chemical soup, or were simply beset by foreign species or horrors from space until no native creature walked their planet alive. It watched these events unfold again, had even started a good portion of them, and still, no name came forth from the depths of Its ancient mind.

But there were titles, caricatures and parodies that tried to describe Itself, but could never fully represent Its terrible magnificence. And though skewed, they seem to bring that dead memory closer to resurrection.

Ahtu.

The Bat God of L'gy'hx.

Shugoran.

The Floating Horror.

The Howler in the Dark.

L'rog'g.

The Skinless One.

It mused, ancient designations and epithets filtering through at a rapid rate, bringing the missing evocation closer and closer to light. There seemed to be a reply from reality, a strain, as if it were trying to withhold the information. The air was slowly filling with sickly whispers and murmurs of a nonexistent breeze. Rock and stone began to buckle, shake, and weep secretions from sources unknown, and probably left better that way, and the defiant door seemed to tremble like a man who finally gained an inkling idea as to what stalked him through alleyways at night. Through it all, a pressure was building, a pressure on existence itself.

More titles eagerly regurgitated out of the depths.

The Masked Messenger.

Sauron.

The Thing in the Yellow Mask.

The Faceless God.

The Dark One.

The Crawling Mist.

More strain. More pressure. More whispers and hisses.

The Dark Demon.

The Bloated Woman.

The Black Wind.

The God of a Thousand Forms.

The omniscient strain was proving too much for actuality. Tears and cracks appeared to alight in the air, portals to places most blessed and foul, and space itself seemed on the brink of collapsing.

And finally, He found it.

The memory of His name!

Smug satisfaction coursed through Him.

He was triumphant in his quest, and the world hated him for it.

The stones were dying. Creatures not yet known around the world were hit with a jittery nervousness as if some sixth sense was trying to report to them the universal laws being so belligerently broken by so blaise a mind. And through it all, He, the tribulation of this supernatural sin, danced in ecstasy.

As the entity eventually ceased His celebration of His success, the world, sickly and trembling, held in a vomit-soaked breath. Were He capable of smiling, a most hideous grin would have graced His features. Really now, how could he have forgotten?

He was the Crawling Chaos.

Nyarlathotep.

Reality retched. A new system was brutalized, demolished, and seemingly rebuilt to accommodate ancient programming, and horror was made manifest.

A man, handsome and beautiful, his head, cheek, and jaw chiseled from marble, resting atop a musculature so agonizingly perfect the gods would sneer in envy. His shoulders were broad and hard, and thick and powerful arms belonging to an Olympian wrestler or body-builder hung on each side.

These human features were so perfect, and that only made the rest of him so wrong. His legs for one; they weren't legs. Rather, they were a mess of massive tentacles, with suckers that winked at the air, and kissed the ground in longing hunger, all leading up to an abdomen horrifically bisected by a grotesque mouth that gurgled and drooled through jagged yellow teeth. Those arms, wonderful specimens, led down to gnarled and misshapen hands with four wicked twitching claws. And that head which would have, at another time perhaps, carried a rugged and godly face, lacked just that. It held no face at all, though it had a brow and pits for eyes, unnaturally shadowed and darkened, as if it were brooding thoughts so evil.

Nyarlathotep stood, basking in his victory over existence.

As if reality could defeat one such as he! The nerve…

Speaking of defeat…

His attention shifted to the magical barrier. It remained the same, defiant and unwavering.

The abomination snorted in distaste. It was a basic enchantment, one designed to be plopped down on a given item or area(like this most charming cave) and then left alone unless interacted with in future instances. Simple, but deceptively powerful. Whoever had left it there had must have left something most exceedingly valuable. At least, to them. Some races from the Old Life put the most intense value on the most petty and mundane items, like minerals or stones. If anything was similar in this new… place, then it was most likely that there was nothing worth a damned thing being kept on the other side.

He turned away from the door. Better to just leave it alone. It had won. He wasn't going to waste any more of the time he was now forced to endure trying to beat it down.

…

Except…

The maw on his belly snarled. Whirling around, he shambled gracefully towards the door. Curiosity was a most deadly condition that inflicted casualties on far more many species than just cats. He longed to see what lay beyond his sight. What was worth protecting with so heavy a charm? What secrets were kept so hidden. He wanted to know. He had to know.

Also...

He was not going to lose to a fucking inanimate object.

Now there was a slight obstacle in the way of his defeating the door to quench his thirst for knowledge. Unfortunately, though he felt a greater measure of power and ability than he had before, he just knew that the magic behind that shield was still too great for him to overpower. Damned troglodytes.

But then another thought occurred to him. An idea, most unbalanced and unhinged in reasoning to those of his standing. There he was, trying so hard to overpower it in the eldritch equivalent of a dick-measuring contest. But really, what would destroying it do, besides giving him a brief sense of dominance? He wanted it gone, make no mistake, but if he couldn't break it…

Why not trick it?

A maddening idea. A leap in logic considered insane by all species, save perhaps one, alone and afraid, on a little blue world in the Old Cosmos, now lost forever. It was, by all rights, retarded. Putting this idea forward could very well see him snuffed out, extinguished. He simply didn't have any measure of the powers he once held, and if his limited capabilities proved inadequate, he could very well die.

But then again, he thought, would that really be a bad thing?

Foul energies swirled, arcane and frightful photons swarming and flooding the God of Bats in his entirety. His essence began twisting, changing, and above all, matching.

He surged forward.

He touched the barrier.

And then he was the barrier.

A voice came through, old(though not too old) and authoritative.

Be steadfast. Be impregnable. Be unending. Bar all who come. Yield only to the mark of the maidens…

A pop, and then a squelch.

And then he was through.

Immediately, patches of skin slid off his frame and flesh crumbled away, black slime oozing forth from the various holes now spotting his body. The figure sagged.

It had been close. Changing his whole being like that was akin to the death-like sleep he and his kin often partook in, but so much worse. It wreaked havoc on his self, and anything below him would surely go mad and be absorbed into the enchantment, shouldering the mantle of responsibility like they themselves had been assigned the task in the first place, killing their existence entirely. Not him though. His mind was capable of withstanding such spiritual suicide, if only just barely.

Despite its rugged and shoddy work, he had to begrudgingly give a little credit to the creator. A lock accessed only by a superphysical signature that transferred amongst a set portion of the populace at seemingly random was a creation that required no small delicate touch.

There might yet be a miniscule sliver of hope for whatever pitiful creatures reside here...

It took a while to recover. Minutes, maybe hours, spent in agony, as flesh slowly stretched and regrew, patching itself up until only his unholy blood remained as a sign of the damage done. Longer still, the time he took to recover his psyche, but recover he did. Moving upright, he surveyed the area he had been previously denied. He was, admittedly, impressed.

Sand.

Endless sands as far as the eye could see. A dimensional pocket. How interesting. Luckily, or perhaps by design, the treasure housed in the warped time-space was immediately in view. It was a grave error in his opinion. What if one of the key holders didn't align to the creators views? It felt like a theft just waiting to happen.

Three stone platforms lay before him leading up to a worn pedestal, this also made of stone. What caught his eye was the ornate piece floating atop it.

An extravagant blue and gold lamp, heavy in supernatural properties, arcane particles floating away from it like smoke.

How curious…

What was it? What did it store? A beacon? A WMD? Life enhancing elixir? Much like the door, this would require a closer inspection.

With a flex of feelers, he launched himself from one platform to the next, taking care to avoid the sands. The platforms might have been there just for show, but in an artificial universe such as this one, where arcane elements exist in every atom, it was near impossible to determine if the unassuming sand held any surprises for unwanted guests.

With three flailing and inhuman leaps, Nyarlathotep attached himself to the pedestal, tentacles curling around like a loving embrace. Below him, the lamp levitated.

He reached down a clawed hand, grasping treasure and bringing it up to inspect. It held power. What type of power, he could not say. It was… locked away. Imprisoned inside. Undoubtedly, there was some hidden action that would unlock the thing. Azathoth only knew just what that action might be. He could be here hours, maybe days trying to figure it out. His patience had already worn thin from the damn door. He would waste no time playing the thing's game.

His figure morphed, head bubbling and bending. It stretched backwards, a single slimy tentacle growing out almost as long as the ones that gave him movement beneath him. Under where the jaw would have been, skin broke, splitting open to reveal a circular and cavernous mouth rimmed with needle-like teeth. It expanded, tearing further open and enveloping the rest of his face, flesh bulging out and warping. The end result looked worse than what it was before; a large monstrous worm, parading as the head of a man, looking like a caricature of a hood from a cloak.

His head tail writhed in the air for a moment, before twisting around in front of him, touching the surface of blue. There was a spike in energy, surging from all throughout his form and traveling up, clumping and congregating together as it all converged into a single point at the tip of the huge fleshy whisker. It traveled into the lamp.

For a short moment, there was silence. Then, a shout filled the air, and the treasure in his grasp bucked and vibrated. The blue magic that seemed to trickle from within grew in intensity flooding out and pooling together in the air where it formed a figure.

It was humanoid, though it was large, its chest was nearly twice as wide and long as his own. Though he was absolutely larger in terms of mass, that was only due to the feelers that extended below him. It was blue, unsurprisingly. With long dark cascading hair, and pointed ears, and a sensuous body, it cut the image of a goddess, though it was debatable just what. It was adorned in chain accessories, a headdress, bracers, anklets, and a belt, all invoking the marks of bondage to some degree.

This new figure stretched its arms arms out, a look of human discomfort plastered on its face. It must not have liked the way it was awoken. Nyarlathotep was unsympathetic.

Dark blue eyes revealed themselves, scanning the area around it before quickly focusing on him and narrowing.

They stared at each other in silence, sizing each other up in the equally silent sands. Finally, after only a brief moment, the blue one spoke, in English of all things.

"I…" it-she started, pausing with an uncertainty that spoke of something unpleasant, "don't know you."

Dark eyebrows furrowed, and the narrow eyes grew only narrower.

"Why don't I know you?"

Ah, so it was frustrated. Or perhaps it was angry? Somewhat understandable. Knowledge was power, and to not know something was to not have power over it. Still though, that was a stupid question. How should he know? He wasn't supposed to be here. Was it supposed to have perfect memory or something? Omniscience? He decided to let it know what he thought of that question.

Why would you think that I would know? Asked Nyarlathotep. I find my situation far more confusing than you do.

A few more seconds of silence passed.

Then a few more.

Was it going to respond? Surely, it must not require that long to think.

The blue being scowled.

"You aren't even capable of speaking, are you?"

OR it just lacked the capability to receive and send telepathic communications. The Elder God shuddered. The thought wasn't nearly as horrifying as being locked into the river of time, but it sure was terrible on its own. It would seem that he would actually have to make vibrations in the air, like a meatbag, if he wanted to get any information.

Inside his body, flesh that was not flesh liquefied, sloshing and churning about to form a voice box coupled with a rudimentary sack for inhaling and exhaling air. The mouth over his gut frowned, and then, for the first time in unknown aeons, the God of a Thousand Forms spoke.

"I…" he spat out, his voice reminisce of a dried man dying of thirst and getting a brief look of disgust from the one before him, "see… *gurgle*that you… are bound… *cough*in ways… beyond your prison…"

Drooling froth bubbled from his teeth as he wheezed. He absolutely hated communicating this way. It felt so primitive… and fleshy. Still, it got the job done.

The scowl returned.

"Taunts are not the response I seek monster. Answer my question!" Her eyes travelled downwards, "And put down that lamp. I live in there, and do not appreciate it being covered in slime."

Nyarlathotep wheezed a coughing laugh at the barb. Before, such a demand, any demand really, would have left him incensed. But having a conversation after what he knew to be a very long time of nothing was rather pleasant. He would let it slide, for now.

Placing the lamp back on the pedestal in a mocking manner, he fired back with another question.

"You… do not…*wheeze* know me. This… angers you. Why…?"

The being folded her arms over her chest, her face spoke of superiority, and authority was her tone.

"I was created by the God of Light to aid Humanity in its quest for knowledge. I know all things. But you… I don't know what thing you are."

Nyarlathotep paused. That answer only raised a billion questions, primarily because of one word.

"Hu...manity…?"

"One and the same."

He hesitated. That was a word he never expected to hear. The fact that it was the name of a local race was expected even less. He eventually shook the memory off, quite literally with a flail of tendrils that caused the Floating entity to raise a beautiful eyebrow in response. This 'humanity' had to have been a different species. Maybe some insectoid race. Mammals and insects often shared surprisingly similar vocal ranges in the Old Life. Regardless, if they were the 'dominant' species around here, then he would have to get more information on them.

"...What..." he began, "is… Humanity?"

The entity seemed confused, or concerned. After a brief pause, she lifted her arm, slender digits splayed and palm down towards him. Below her hand, a creature poofed into existence.

Nyarlathotep stilled completely, all appendages, which before had been waving around as if tasting the surroundings, freezing in place. Even the uncontrollable twitch of his claws ceased.

Mammalian. Biped. With two arms, two eyes, ten fingers, and devoid of fur, save for a mop of hair atop its head.

As grotesque as they were before, and absolutely, positively impossible.

"Humanity, creations and servants of the Two Brothers. Their males are called men, thei-"

Whatever else she had to say was lost on him.

That didn't make sense. That didn't make any sense at all. Primarily, because humanity, the very concept and idea of humanity, was gone. They had died out long, long before the End. Devoured entirely.

He should know.

He had killed them.

"-keep away from them."

He was brought into focus by the demand.

"What… did you say?"

The being's stare was ice.

"You will keep away from them. I may be sealed for most of my existence, but that has not dulled my senses. I can hear them. The anguished cries of human souls. Coming from you. You have killed before. I do not know how, since I would have known if you had killed them at any point since Remnant's creation. But you have killed many nonetheless. I may not know what you are, but if I don't know you, then that means you should not be here. You will not interfere with the plan of the Brothers."

Nyarlathotep was intrigued. He was also downright indignant from the demand, but he was intrigued more so. Every sentence she uttered brought only more questions. She could hear the souls of the fledgling race he had devoured so long ago? Could she also hear their memories, or their broken dreams like he could? Did she actually know everything of this world? Why was she speaking a human tongue? And what was this 'plan'? It sounded... interesting…

He let out another gurgle, then a wheeze, which slowly morphed into a coughing chuckle, and then a hacking cackle.

More than that, it sounded amusing, and oh so typical.

The magical woman looked guarded at this display.

"The more… things change…" he chuckled, "the more they stay the same."

He was starting to get used to talking again, though he still detested it.

Blue eyes narrowed once more.

"What are you laughing at?" She asked through gritted teeth.

"Humanity!" He roared in glee, rising up on his fleshy appendages, arms raised out as if gesturing an unseen audience, "Bowing… scraping… and dancing like puppets to higher forces! Rats that eek out a living on a miserable ball of dirt... only to be snuffed out in the end!"

His tone turned mocking and cruel.

"Oh the tragedy! Such is their fate in the river… of Time! They fight, they cry, they KILL! And in the End, that bitter... cold End, it is… for NOTHING!" He finished with an amused hiss.

"...The Brothers' plan," came the low, and decently dangerous response, "is one of redemption. They are not so twisted in form or mind as you. They care for Humanity, despite their capacity for foolishly dangerous actions. They wish to see Humanity earn back their favor. To show them that they can rise above desires that go against the laws put in place. If they were to callously treat them like maggots, that would drive them to dark and dangerous places. Places where things, things just like you," she pointed an imperious finger, "hide. I know those things. They are evil. You are evil. You are a tumor in this existence, a sore that should not be. You will disappear and die, and you will keep your vile presence away from them and curse them with harm no more!"

The gaping maw that was his head growled. Oh, if only she knew! If only she knew what he was, and the power he had once claimed! And to threaten him? The Crawling Chaos? It was madness!

"I will go…" he growled, "where I want to. I will kill… who I want to and when I want to. I WILL DIE…"

He stopped. His fiery fury was promptly snuffed out by the thought.

...Die…

When would he die?

He couldn't just go up and do that, could he? It's not like he could commit suicide. The very action was impossible for any of the Old Ones. There had been one suicide among them: Azathoth. He thought back to those final and glorious centuries, and he couldn't help but wonder. Why had he done it? The answer was, of course, unknown, but the Outer God ached with curiosity. What had driven his father so?

Was it all a part of some great plan? A higher scheme that surpassed the limitless cosmos and its neighboring dimensions? Was it an accident? An oversight of some crucial detail that had caused it all to run amok? He didn't think it was that, but then he had absolutely no way of knowing.

Or maybe... just maybe…

The Nuclear Chaos had grown tired.

Tired of existence.

Nyarlathotep, having surrounded himself amongst a billion cultures, knew what it was like to tire of something. You could only see a living thing sacrificed a certain way before it became boring, so he would find a new way for the blood to flow, a new torture method to sate himself until the appeal of the abandoned one grew again.

But to tire of one's own life?

On Earth, that little blue ball, a surprising number of humans had stumbled upon immortality. True immortality. The ability to have your head pulped and splattered by accident or enemy intent, and then walk away just fine moments later. Most, being cult leaders and vagabonds, had used their situation to spread terror and bloodshed and worship and praise of the ones they knew to be above them. They saw a gift, and hungrily snatched onto it like the greedy cretins they were.

But there were some, so very very few, who had not done these things. Most of this group had, at one point, been part of those blessed degenerates, if only in similarity. They had traveled their planet, taking whatever they wanted, destroying former friends, foes, and bystanders alike, and having what they felt to be a rowdy old time. But then they just... stopped. They grew tired of their world that slowly changed around them. Of the wars that sprung up like wildfires across the globe. Of seeing the pain, terror, and awe in the eyes of mortal men over and over and over again.

They grew tired of themselves.

They sought ways to end it. Throwing themselves from cliffs, from buildings. Falling on their blades, and destroying their bodies with whatever weapons existed. They turned to the supernatural, seeking witches, shamans, or murderous and numerous elder things that stalked the lands that Humanity falsely believed to be under their control.

None of them had worked. None of them would; it took an incalculable power to undo the effects. Power that he had held.

When he had slaughtered the planet, and billions of souls screamed in fear and dismay, and thousands howled in glee and danced in sanity-blasted worshipful fancy, those select few had gone to him with serene and hopeful smiles on their disgustingly symmetrical faces.

They disgusted him, and he had killed them slowly, doing anything he could to rid them of their grotesque and terrible grins. What type of creature, what worm, would dare seek to undo the blessings that endless others would kill, maime, and torture for? The type that should have never existed in the first place.

That's what he had thought then, devouring the whole of humanity.

Back then, they had disgusted him.

Now?

Now he contemplated.

His situation was not so different from theirs. One might dare say that they were exactly the same.

Is this how they felt? He mused, cheated from rest? Did they feel forced to wander the tiny space afforded to them, waiting and hoping for a way to end? They had been locked in the river of time as well…

How depressing.

And that's when another thought dawned on him. A bad one.

He could feel Time. He didn't know at what point of its lifespan this universe was at, but if it plays out anything like the last one did, he could be here a long time. A really long time. Could he endure it? What if, at it's fiery and spectacular end, he did the impossible, and survived again?

Living through one universe and being able to toy with its contents free from Time's control had been fun, satisfying even. Living through the entirety of a second one without that power seemed daunting. A possible third was terrifying.

He didn't desire this.

He didn't desire this at all.

He wanted out now.

Suicide was, again, impossible. He literally could not kill himself, the same way that mammals, most of them anyway, could not live without breathing. He'd have to find a way to die.

But how? How!?

What was there in this space that could end him? He would search if he had to, but the thought was torturous. Who or what could give him that final oblivion?

It was then that he had an epiphany. It would have been embarrassing if he were capable of feeling shame. He may not have the answer, but there was someone not forty feet away who just might.

Well, He thought with more than a little bit of snark, focusing on the floating spirit, who had been regarding him with a careful and uncertain curiosity. She must have been confused by the sudden flooding and retreating of hostility.

Let's see if she knows this.

---

"How…" The nameless thing asked, wheezing and frothing from its grotesque and unsightly mouth, "do I… die?"

Jinn, Spirit of Knowledge and servant to the God of Light, blinked.

The question was… innocent, in a horrifying way, like a child asking where babies come from, only a thousand times worse, given the subject and the one asking. She could sense simultaneous certainty and uncertainty in that inquiry, despite the completely alien features of the creature in front of her.

It knew what it wanted, but clearly the question seemed to go against its depraved and malignant nature.

In the millenia of her life in servitude, it was a first.

Not the first time that that question had been asked. She remembered with absolute clarity a certain blonde haired human witch asking that same question, a few thousand years ago, though not to her directly. It wouldn't have mattered for the girl anyways. Her situation was hopeless. She had tricked the God of Darkness, brother to the God of Light, and she had payed for it, cursed to walk the earth until she had learned the meaning of life and death. And then the entire human race had payed as well, as she used them in an attempt to overthrow their creators, a suicidal endeavor for all, save her. Although humanity eventually returned, crawling forth from corners known only to her, that same fool of woman had only gone down darker paths.

The being before her, was similar.

In some ways, it might just be better, however slim and improbable that chance was.

In most ways, it was undoubtedly worse.

The prime example being the damnable shroud it knowingly or unknowingly created for her.

All knowledge of Remnant, every scrap of information, from the actions of the immortal witch Salem to the basic and primitive daily struggle of every microorganism, was known to her. This thing stood out in that she had literally zero information on it, not a single action taken by, or concerning, it until literally a few hours ago.

She hadn't even known the damned thing existed until it had started to move. Of course, from that moment on, it had screamed its foreign presence to her constantly.

It was a bit like watching a play, with an extremely well hidden actor on the set. You don't see them because they're not moving, but then they do move, and you can't help but notice and pay attention to this thing that moves around on stage for the rest of the show affecting the setting and the characters in various ways, and there's no information in the program that tells you who they are, or what their role in the show is.

To an omniscient being like Jinn, it was torture.

But regardless, it desired the same thing the girl had; to pass on from this world, and perhaps into a place only the Brother Gods knew.

Self termination was an action that very few creatures were capable of. This… thing, was most likely not part of those select few. Nothing as dark and foreboding as this thing ever was.

Hence, it was a first. An evil creature knowing that it needed to go, and actually wanting to do so.

Were her master still around, he would have obliged it with extreme prejudice. Frankly, she would too, but she lacked the capability. And the power. She did not know what the abomination was, but she was all but certain that it would not die from outside forces so easily.

However difficult it might be, this thing had to go. Its very presence in the world was unholy, and against all natural law. She searched herself, perusing millenia and more of thoughts, instances, and memories fed to her from all around the creation of her master and his brother. She most definitely did not want to send it to the Pool of Destruction. She had laid claim to that now, and she did not want even a possibility of such a thing entering the witch's service. Besides, what if it jumped in the pool like her, and survived? For a brief few seconds, a horrifying amount of time, she found nothing. She was beginning to worry that the monster before her would have to roam free upon the world, the closed door to the dimension telling her that trapping it here was not an option.

But then she found it. An idea. A brutal and callous plan, not even possible if the creature was incapable, but the only one available.

To it and her.

Better throw it out there, she thought, the abomination is starting to look impatient. Though it may just look aggressive naturally.

"Do you know," she began, "of soul fusion?"

Its… head tail, whipped back and forth at the question.

"Soul… fuse?" It inquired, and Jinn once again felt the urge to take a bath from its voice alone.

"Soul fusion." she clarified, "The act where a sentient being merges its soul, or whatever passes for one, with the equivalent of another sentient creature in one body, fusing the two together, hence the name. It is a most vile magic."

It stared at her. She was pretty sure that it stared, though it had no eyes.

"You… suggest…" it said, and she believed that it did so incredulously, "that I… tie my essence… to that of a… human?"

So, it would appear that the creature was capable of deductive reasoning. That only made it worse.

"Humanity or Faunus," she clarified, "both are the same in spirit."

"And live…" it shuddered, it most definitely shuddered, "the life… of a mortal?"

Clearly, it didn't like the idea, luckily, there was a way to 'add sugar to the medicine'.

"Life" she began, "is not guaranteed in this world. You may be unnatural, but you must know this. Humans, faunus, and animals die all the time. Even at childbirth. All you have to do is find a human or faunus laid low for any number of reasons but hasn't expired yet, fuse together, and 'ride it out' to the end. The younger they are, the easier the process. I'm sure you find it unappealing, but it is the only option that you have."

"It… is cruel."

Didn't she know it. The fact that the vile and evil horror also thought so proved it, even if it was only thinking of itself. No man or woman, no thing, should ever have to endure such a horrible situation, especially a child, but at least with children, the younger they were, the more humane it would be.

After all, they wouldn't be capable of understanding the crime committed to them.

"It is the only option you have."

The monster writhed and roiled, gnashing its teeth, and clenching and flexing its claws for what felt like hours. It soon however, stopped and seemed to deflate a little. Had she convinced it?

"Where…" it asked, "do I find a dying… host?"

Jinn didn't smile. She didn't feel victorious. She knew just how barbaric the plan was.

"There are spells, powered through symbols and markings, that can point you to the target you seek." They were also of a most dark and evil nature, perfectly aligned for the demon. "And others similar in casting requirements that can take you there." The sooner this thing died, the better off Remnant would be.

"Show me." Came the demand, devoid of inhuman gurgles and coughs, crystal clear, as if spoken by a normal man.

"I shall, but I have one request," it snarled, and she raised a placating hand, "a small favor for the information you so highly value. I assure you it is an equal exchange."

"You try… a near nonexistent… patience." It growled. "What is your demand?"

Jinn lowered her arm.

"You awoke here, without form. Invisible. Go back to that state."

A tense silence settled over them.

"...Why?" It asked.

"I know all things, arcane and mundane, the people of this world do not. The number who know of the arcane is a number that can be counted to very quickly. With the way things are now, it would be… a hindrance to the servants to the God of Light if the rest of the population were exposed to one such as you, and made aware of the secrets kept from them."

The thing actually snorted in response.

"Mortals… and their lack of knowledge… disappoint me."

Jinn couldn't help the grim smirk that grew on her face.

"The feeling is shared, I assure you."

"You have… given me knowledge." It coughed, "I… will grant your request."

She showed it the symbols, those evil designs, instructed him in their etching, done on one of the stone platforms with a single steady and wicked claw.

It powered them with its own blood, splitting a single massive feeler that dripped sinister black ooze onto the carvings which glowed unearthly red in response. It didn't take long to find a target, things were dying all the time.

As a shadowy hole stretched from the center of the evil circles and shapes drawn on the floor, the monster imploded. Flesh buckled and crumpled, accompanied by sickening crunches and squelches, collapsing in on itself until it was little more than a black bead that slowly shrank in size and promptly disintegrated.

It was still there though. She could feel its presence, a sinister and oppressive thing that seemed to only get heavier from the change, as if its physical body had been keeping it all hidden.

Throughout the ether, a voice, distorted and surrounded by echoes of other voices that most certainly did not echo the originator, called out.

"Farewell, imprisoned servant."

She 'hmph'ed.

"Farewell, monster."

The aura disappeared, the black magic hole following a short while later.

It had left.

With nothing but the sand and wind for company, Jinn returned to her lamp. She settled inside, and returned to her slumber.

She also prayed that the monster was the only one of its kind.

---

That trip was unpleasant, and that in itself made it pleasant.

He'd be horribly disappointed if the respectable magic shown to him was in any way comfortable.

As quickly as darkness overtook him, it just as quickly receded, replaced with the brightness of a moonless night, illuminated by the stars above.

Stars…

He stared longingly at the dancing dots above him, but had to forcibly turn away.

These were not his stars.

Were the opportunity available, and circumstances different, he would sail those cold depths, plunging through black radiation to seek out new mysteries and worlds unknown.

But he could not. He would not. He had come to die, and die he would. He would enter his host, and pass on into oblivion, free from the restricting chains of Time.

But these things had to be taken one step at a time of course.

First, he had to find his host.

He looked around him, drinking in the sights of many small, humble, and absolutely revolting wooden houses.

It was a shame that the spell couldn't just land him directly on top of his target. He'd have to search quickly, lest his opportunity die with his host and force him to take more… drastic measures.

An agonized wail breaking the night ceased His search before it had even begun.

He looked to the source; a building, larger than all the others, though humble in aesthetic. Royalty perhaps?

How ironic… He mused, gliding towards the apparent abode. Ironic that the most powerful should suffer the greatest blows.

Passing through the walls was easy, there was no magic stopping him here. The sight that greeted his eyes, was of a family. He thought it was a family. Despite how familiar he had become with humanity, irrelevant of the souls he harbored inside himself, they were still alien to him, and he to them.

A man, close to weeping, and holding close to him five young females of various ages and in various states of distress. Daughters? Lovers? He didn't know, and honestly, he didn't care.

He didn't come here to study the relationships of maggots, he came here to possess a dying one. So he moved on from them.

His presence, consuming and evil, went unnoticed in their apparent and delicious grief.

He moved past males and females both, clad in uniforms reminiscent of the clothing that clad the doctors and nurses of old Earth. They spoke in hushed tones to each other, sharing looks of pity and sympathy between themselves.

They… also spoke English. A most confounding coincidence. Really, between the clothes, the language, and the architecture, Nyarlathotep almost felt as if he had gone back in time. Almost.

His presence was much more noticed by these social servants. He would pass by an individual or group who would then shudder, look around themselves in fear and confusion, before shaking themselves off and resuming their activities, though now with a more paranoid behavior.

It felt nice to be appreciated.

Finally, the words of one caught his attention.

"It's not looking good," came the hushed whisper, and the Outer God whirled to see the source, an aging man in a white coat conversing with a woman with…

Antlers?

They were indeed antlers, poking out the top of the woman's hair, and branching off to the sides a few inches. The man seemed to ignore them as he talked. Were they invisible to him?

He drew closer, and heard the man continue, "he can't breath. We think that his lungs aren't fully developed. Not enough oxygen is getting to his brain and we figure he has a few hours at best, before he expires."

He might have found a lead to his host.

"Oh no…" The woman hybrid murmured despondently, tilting her head and rubbing her hands on one of her antlers, "Poor Juniper… and David… they finally had a son too…"

The man grimaced, slightly nodding his head.

"I'm trying to figure out what I can do, but without working lungs, he's only gonna pass away."

The woman looked crushed.

The doctor sighed, his shoulder sagging.

"I'm gonna go back in, see if there's any avenues I haven't explored yet. We got him in an incubator, but it's not helping much."

The woman smiled sadly, and spoke, "Thank you, for Juniper's sake."

The man didn't respond, walking away from her and towards a closed door.

Nyarlathotep followed.

Inside, machinery whirred and beeped, surrounding a small glass container.

There lay the prize. His ticket out of this cursed prison.

The doctor, taking a brief moment to look at the container's occupant, breathed out another sigh before moving to inspect a piece of the medical equipment, leaving Nyarlathotep with an unobstructed view.

It was tiny and shriveled. Lying down on its back with a sterilized light blue blanket for bedding, its head lay to its side, eyes closed.

It was beautiful. Not in the human sense. Nyarlathotep found the thing revolting. It's what the maggot represented: freedom, and peace.

He wasted no time, plunging through glass, and, pausing for a brief moment, at the proximity, he possessed the infant.

Its mindscape was exceedingly bare, devoid of thought and memory, as was to be expected of such a lowly creature.

Here, he coalesced, a mental projection of his avatar that spoke to the blue spirit. Normal men would have lost their sanity at the image forming in their brain, but this dying child was literally incapable of doing so.

He didn't even have to search to find it, the expiring thing's soul. It was primitive and basic. It sputtered like a candle flame. Slowly, ever so slowly, it was fading.

Such a small and fragile thing. Hideous, but necessary.

Nyarlathotep, for a barest moment, considered overriding the creature's essence, taking control of its body entirely and setting out to do unwanton destruction and horrific slaughter upon an unwary populace.

No. He decided with a sudden and tired mindset, It would be fun, but that would only prolong my stay.

He didn't merge with the soul. He wouldn't. Not yet. There was still an hour or two left before it faded, and the less time he spent tainted by it, the better.

So he waited.

He waited longingly, watching the soul's flame ever so slowly die out.

Waiting to shuffle off this alien coil.

He watched in silence.

"Juniper!" The exclamation from outside the baby's body caught his attention. With nothing better to do, he brought himself out of its soon-to-be carcass to see what commotion was happening beyond. It might be entertaining, at least.

"You shouldn't be walking about so soon!" Exclaimed the doctor, rushing over to a woman being assisted into the room by a female nurse. The sweaty blonde locks reaching down to her mid back and the full curves of her figure told that she might have been beautiful, were she not so haggard and worn.

"I'll be fine Anthony," she responded with a woozy wave of her hand, "aura's healing me, I'll be fine."

The doctor wasn't eased from the dismissal.

"Even with aura," he started, "you still need to get some rest for a few h-""Anthony."

The woman cut him off, shooting him a small glare that turned into a very small smile. It was not a happy smile. It spoke of rage, and grief, and pain. Her eyes were misty, and her voice cracked when she next spoke.

"I want to see my son again before he dies. Please?"

The doctor, Anthony, had been stopped mid sentence, his mouth remaining open for a moment with the next word on the tip of his tongue before he clicked his jaw shut. He gave her a hesitant nod, and left the room.

"I'll give you a few minutes." He called over his shoulder before he shut the door.

The woman, the mother, sighed. It would seem the action was infectious around here.

The nurse at her side walked her over to the glass, before declaring her intent to grab her a chair and doing just that.

The mother gave a dejected smile of appreciation before seating herself down.

She asked for privacy, to which the nurse, like the doctor before her, seemed hesitant, but relented all the same, retreating through the door with the demand masquerading as a request to call for her should any problems arise.

"Thank you."

A click of a latch, and then only the whir of machinery remained as noise.

Nyarlathotep stared at the woman with confused disappointment.

Was that it? That wasn't very exciting. Might as well go back into the baby. He'd rather not spend the rest of his time having a one-sided staring contest with a monkey.

But then she spoke.

"Hi there." She whispered with a shiny-eyed smile. Nyarlathotep was surprised. He knew the words and what they meant. Could…

Could she see him?

"It's your mommy."

Ah. He had almost forgotten how insane humans could be, talking to damn near anything, regardless of if it could hear them or not.

"I've come to see you." She cooed softly, looking down on the pathetic lump. Her smile trembled, and her eyes shone as bright as the stars. Her head rolled forwards, hanging low. Shoulders shaking, small sobs began to escape from her.

The infant couldn't hear her. Did she not know that? Even the humans of Earth knew that it took time for their children to become fully sentient. He considered materializing, blasting her into atoms, or shredding her apart with teeth and claws, or any number of things just so he could die in peaceful silence. The time was coming closer.

Her next actions however, caught him off guard, though they really shouldn't have. She brought her forearms up, hands clasping together against her forehead and fingers intertwining. It was an action he'd seen, a million times before.

She began to pray.

"Please," Nyarlathotep wanted to snort at her begging tone.

"I've never been a religious woman." The confession was nothing new, so many others on just as many worlds had never believed in a higher power, benevolent or malevolent. It had always been satisfying to watch them try and make up for it when he and his kin came to kill, torture, and play with them to their hearts' content. They would bow down, weep, and pray, sacrifice animals, friends, even self-proclaimed loved ones in an effort to spare themselves. Their meditations did nothing, save bring dark chuckles from hungry and malignant mouths.

"I've lived a life full of doing wrong, like so many other people. I never bothered to pray. I have been selfish and heartless so many, many times. I've even killed." She sobbed again. "And I have been given such a peaceful and wonderful life with David that I never deserved, five beautiful girls that I still don't deserve. And I've been grateful. For all of them."

That confession surprised him. To announce your own wrong doings was to invite retribution and vindication from others. It was suicidal.

The woman wasn't done. Far from it.

"I know," she tearfully continued, "that it could end. At any time. I know my problem is not special. That it's happened a thousand times before. But I want you to know… that right now, a baby boy is dying. Right now, my son is dying. And I… I can't do anything about it!"

Tears splashed her forearms and hospital gown, and the God of Bats looked on.

"He doesn't deserve this! He doesn't deserve to die. He deserves to grow, and be loved, and get muddy, and play with the other boys. To get lovingly picked on by sisters. To… to find girls. Girls that flock to him by the dozens that his sisters have to fight back with sticks and swords to protect their baby brother from their sweet honeyed looks and kisses!" She cried.

"Please! Please don't take this from him."

"Please don't take my son!"

The door burst open, and the man he had first seen rushed in. He was blonde and well-built, and he moved quickly towards the woman, who stood and collapsed into his embrace with a wail. His face was stone.

His eyes though?

They burned with anger and despair for events beyond his control. Nyarlathotep had seen those eyes many times.

They held each other for a good while, their only source of comfort in a storm of emotion.

The doctor walked in, grimaced at the sight before him for a split second before putting on the mask of a professional once again. He moved around them to a screen, displaying information understood only by those of medicinal practice. He scanned through the information, frowned, and caught the gaze of the mother's mate with a nod.

The time was near.

Nyarlathotep saw the signal, diving back into the child to the sound of the father's voice urging his wife to lie down.

He popped up again in the child's mind, staring at the sputtering soul.

That had been… interesting, He thought, moving closer to the child's spirit. Quite a display of emotions from an ape. He didn't think they could get so worked up over the death of a child.

Why should he care though? They were beneath him in all but literal height at the moment. They got their petty moaning out of the way. It was time for their spawn to die, and take him with it.

He reached out a clawed hand, scant inches away from his fate.

And he paused.

Damn it all, but he paused.

Was that normal?

It didn't feel normal. You would have thought they were bemoaning their own death for all the tears and rage.

He had to compare. He had to see just how unnatural this display was. The curiosity ate away at him. It burned like a raging inferno and he needed to quench it.

He retracted the hand. There was still just a little more time. Coupled with the speed of thought, he could take one small moment to satisfy himself. He reached with that same manipulator towards the maw on his gut, that rumbled and retched before depositing the prize he sought into the outstretched claws.

He brought it up to look at it, a burning orb, far bigger and brighter than the near nonexistent dot in front of him.

They were similar, if not the same, for they were both human.

It was his trophy. A collection of human souls with emotions and memories he had harvested on that fateful day as a keepsake. Not just that one day either. It held Humanity's genetic memory, dating all the way back to that first moment where, only tens of thousands of years previously, an ape-man looked to the stars and actually wondered. It was humanity, albeit a different and far older one. It had been a metaphorical bone to gnaw and chew on when he desired.

Now? He studied it.

And then he searched it, perusing through memories like files in a drawer, looking for moments just like this one; the loss of a child in infancy.

He found instances of them, all right. Billions of them. All of them just as tear-soaked and wretched as the display he had just witnessed.

But then he found others; cases not the same, but similar.

The mother dying in childbirth, leaving a single man to do the work of two. Sometimes there was no counterpart, and the child was left on its own.

The mother and child both expiring was also a similarity, in numbers that, combined with the second category of instances, made a number almost as great as the first.

And there were more, way more, of moments not at all similar, but just as steeped in grief and pain.

The loss of a friend. A brother. A sister. A lover. A… a friend.

It was pathetic.

And then, the Dark One imagined.

He dared to imagine.

He dared to imagine himself on that tiny world. He dared to imagine himself just as weak and powerless as they, something he never would have dreamed of doing before. He thought of his kin, and their various children. They did not love them, but they did converse with them often. One might dare say they enjoyed each other's presence.

They could never die, as eternal as they were. There was no potential for them to. They simply became forces of nature, cemented in place like natural law. But… What if they could die?

No, He realised. It was more than pathetic. It was…

Depressing.

Was every world like this? He wondered, bringing out more trophies to examine thoroughly. Not in a sense of guilt. He would never feel guilty for what he had done. He was just curious. He wanted to see if they were the same.

They weren't.

They were completely different. Alien mindsets with zero similarities to Humanity, save the ability and need to expand.

Humanity was… unique. It was absurdly fragile, and grotesque in form throughout the cosmos, but it was unique. Surrounded by despair and drowning in sorrow before he had ever set his sights on their little blue prison. He knew others of his kin, the prophet and his servants being some of them, had set up shop there long before man's earliest ancestor had crawled out of the muck, but he could see no instances of them causing the memories he saw.

Looking back, he had actually done them a service! He had ended their millenia of grief. They would no longer feel the loss of a loved one. They would no longer be so drenched in sorrow. They no longer had to endure as a doleful and melancholy species.

Except…

They didn't seem like that before they died, had they? No, they carried on with fighting and building and playing the same as the rest of those worlds he had crushed.

How? Were they driven mad? They must have been. Or was there something in their lives that could undo all the desolation?

And then he found them, those horrible reasons.

Compassion and Comfort. Alien feelings with even more alien actions unknown to him. The ability to confide with another entirely. To lay bare your griefs and pains to another soul. To cry and scream your thoughts to an ear that was willing to listen. And when the rage and sorrow was spent, humans were able to move on, maybe not immediately, but eventually.

He saw triumph. Men and women working tirelessly through their natural sleep cycles to save just one useless infant. He saw them triumph, and steal the wretch's soul from oblivion and give it the chance to walk the land until it inevitably died anyway.

He saw Defiance. Insanity given form. To see your place in the cold and heartless universe and deny it as truth. To strive and increase your status, if only a tiny bit. It was a trait shown time and time again. Humans, men and women, looked at all the children dead at birth and they said 'enough'. They searched for medicine, created doctors and procedures, and did their damnedest to stop the natural slaughter.

And they were succeeding.

In four centuries, not even the universal blink of an eye, the numbers dropped. Death was still there, but it's harvest was not a sliver of what it had been before.

So many souls given life, the ability to travel their tiny globe and change it ever so slightly.

And they did. Their accomplishments were, in the grand scheme of things, utterly pointless and had no effect on anything outside of their atmosphere, but to the Human race they were everything. Individuals, no different in size or appearance from those around them, moulding the future and mindset of their species.

A man once walked the Earth. He taught kindness and compassion, evil emotions, to all that would listen, starting an unknown revolution through his self sacrifice that killed the longest lasting empire to date. Literally killed with kindness.

A man once walked the Earth. His home was considered harsh. A laughable statement, but their world held lands far more preferable to his own. His mate was stolen from him. Deeming the act unacceptable, he set out on a quest of defiant vengeance, getting her back and then conquering his neighbors, and theirs beyond them, starting one of the largest empires that the world had ever seen, with a death toll so large it cooled the globe.

A man once walked the Earth. He was forced under the reign of another man that had inherited his power from his ancestors. In an act of defiance, he shot his ruler, and his defiance would plunge a continent into warfare, terribly primitive warfare that saw millions killed. That same continent would be set ablaze not one moment later, burning at the word of a man spared in an act of compassion in the previous war.

A man walked the Earth. The nation under his command was at war. But it wasn't war as most things in the universe knew it to be. It was a strange war. An unofficial war. A war to prove themselves greater than their rival through technological prowess. That man saw his rival touch the space above them, and so he looked further, and saw a moon. Not even a century after a human had lifted from the ground through horribly basic and artificial means, two of them stood triumphant on a separate celestial body. A technological leap that, while indescribably primitive, was the greatest and fastest of its kind from any species in the universe.

It was Chaos.

Beautiful Chaos achieved by the most grotesque creatures as a result of the most alien emotions. Disgustingly primitive and four-dimensional, but beautiful in its own way…

He jolted.

That had been… a surprise.

He regarded the thing in his grasp with a new light. He didn't respect them. He still very much detested them. But their capacity for unpredictable and unprecedented actions, in their infinitely tiny scale, was marvelous. So many simultaneous emotions. So many conflicting actions. The potential for just one of them to drag their species forward or bring the world to its knees was astonishing.

He looked up to regard the barely visible speck before him.

What would this one have done, were things different? Most likely, not much. The petty accomplishments of a few did not outweigh the fact that the rest of their fledgling race was dull, weak, and pathetic. A race of sheep, taken control of by an occasional lion.

Then again, he refuted, didn't they all start just like this worm I reside in now?

Would it have been weak? A stain upon existence?

Or would it have been great? A manipulator of its race?

He didn't know. He had no way of knowing, he couldn't see the future anymore.

…

He wanted to know.

He recoiled at the thought. That traitorous desire. NO! He didn't want that! He wanted to fucking die!

But it has potential. Just like they did.

Internal conflict was something previously unfathomable to him. Literally unknown until now, and it was terrifying. Had he gone insane?

He let go of the collective soul in his grasp, where it floated before him. Were they secretly psychic? Did they infect him? There was no way! They had shown no abilities to indicate such before they died. And he had been digesting them for aeons. He would have known sooner if their presence was a danger to him.

Why? He wondered, Why would I wish to see the potential paths a human might take?

He realized why.

They were Chaos.

He was Chaos.

Remove his powers and age, and they were the same.

Preposterous! He roared, now thoroughly in the depths of what most people would call self-induced madness, they are nothing like me! They are dirt! Dirt compared to my magnificence! However impressive their capacity for disorder may be, they will never reach the same monumental scale I can achieve! They don't have my power! And that will always keep them in the dirt where they belong! This whelp, this… this human spawn will never compare, will never be as grand and as terrible as I, because he will never have the ability that I do!

He fumed in silence.

…

…

…

But what if it did?

He shuddered at the thought.

It would be… magnifi- NO!

He shook himself mentally, flying back, away from the shrinking light.

He came here to die. And die he would. He would not be tempted by an insane idea that sounded so…

So beautiful…

...

What would it gain me? He wondered, inquiring of himself as he gazed once more at the extinguishing soul. It was nearly gone now. It would maybe last two more minutes.

What could my power in such a small thing even bring about?

The answer was a hushed whisper from the farthest recesses of his twisted mindscape.

Chaos.

He was silent.

He started to chuckle.

He started to cackle.

He started to laugh. It was a deep laugh, a cruel laugh.

Chaos! Indeed, it would bring about disorder of a most unmitigated and most out-of-control fashion!

But that meant that he would stay alive. Hadn't he come here to die?

If I were to tie my soul with the spawn's, then when it gets snuffed out, I'll be taken with it. He reasoned. The damned thing's body is exceedingly fragile anyway. It might not be able to handle the stress of my power. If it can't, then we would die, and it would be a victory for me regardless!

But what if it survives?

If it survives, then I would just direct it through its meager life until it died of old age. They don't live long. What is the lifespan of a human but a drop in an ocean-covered planet compared to mine?

He shuddered again.

I have truly gone insane, he realized, eyeing the infant's soul hungrily.

He lurched and pulled towards it once more, the seductive thought cemented in his misshapen brain.

He had decided.

So, one more stint through a world as a mortal shell? Pulling the planet's lowly denizens into absolute disarray? He asked of himself, drawing closer and closer.

He stopped, and were he capable of doing so, he would have frowned.

Haven't I already done similar possessions before?

Yes, yes he had. Millions of times, in fact. That made it boring. It was starting to lose its appeal. He didn't want the prospect to lose its appeal! Not while it was still so freshly enticing!

And that is when he had the Idea.

The Idea that would shape the world.

What if… What if he wasn't in control at all?

He spasmed at the thought. It was terrifying. It was masochistic. But above all, it was… unpredictable.

So very very unpredictable.

So very insane, and so very amusing.

Nyarlathotep, messenger of Azathoth and an Outer God, passenger of a human given his might and magic in its ancient entirety. He could not think of a better place to watch the spectacle, than through the eyes of the one he would give his demonic blessings to.

Yes, he decided, it will be out of my control. The spawn will go where he wants, do what he wants, and- wait.

He stopped yet again, hesitant. Further proof of his blasted psyche.

What if it doesn't have aspirations? What if it ends up boring?

He couldn't have that. His host needed to be a mover, a shaker, confident and sure.

And then the second idea came to him, floating right next to the child's soul, out shining it even in its semi-digested state.

Humanity. The whole of humanity. On the individual level, they were less than useless, but together?

Yes.

He grasped the united essence. They and the infant were one and the same. A perfect coincidence. A chance that was so improbable that it might as well be labeled impossible.

But then again, the impossible had a bad habit of being proven wrong time and again recently.

It would do perfectly.

He touched the collective and the lone spirit together. The child, rather than be swallowed by the superior flame, did just the opposite, consuming the far greater essence in an act he found to be both surprising yet expected. It was Human defiance in its purest form.

It was also a sign in favor of the child.

It proved the little bug had some fight in him yet.

A sudden and hilarious realization made him think of the woman, the mother, crying not four feet away a moment ago.

He chuckled darkly, practically diving into the flame, letting it wash over him. He was not consumed by the flame, though one might have been led to think so. The two souls merged, leaving a roaring yellow inferno encompassing a blackened ball.

Fused together.

One soul, two minds.

You weep when you should rejoice, human, he thought, flooding the infant's body with unseen eldritch energies, finishing the delicate work that could not be completed in the womb. Bronchioles formed, powered by ancient force, intaking oxygen previously denied to the specimen at a rapid rate. The brain, so close to shutting down, regenerated, keeping itself in stasis until the life-giving red blood cells reached and sustained it, as was their function. The magic may have done the job too well, to be honest. The kid would have quite the set of lungs when he was older, and his brain might just be a little advanced for kids his age, for a time anyway.

Your prayer has been answered…

---

It was a coughing cry that snapped Juniper Arc's eyes open. She had been drifting into merciful slumber in her hospital bed when it happened. She sluggishly sat upright at the sound.

She hadn't meant to drift, but she was exhausted. The taxing labor of childbirth, coupled with the stress of knowing she was about to lose her most recent blessing, had taken a toll on her. It was a nap kept light through her sheer will. She would not forgive herself for sleeping while her baby boy was in another room dying.

She thought back to that little bundle she had held only scant hours before.

Her son Jaune.

He had been a happy surprise at first. Not in the sense that he was an accident, no, Juniper intended to have as large of a family that she could, much to her husband David's delight and horror.

No, he'd been a surprise in that he was a he. They had long ago thought that the Y chromosome in David had died off. It would explain the five beautiful girls they had already been blessed with.

It was more of a surprise at just how early he had decided to come into the world.

Six months. Very premature. Despite the seriousness of the situation at the time, and the pains of labor, she couldn't help but be morbidly amused.

She had thought him feisty, wanting to get out and get on with it.

But then he was born, and he had been quiet. Sure, he wiggled a little, and coughed a tiny bit, but there had been a disturbing lack of that delightful cry she had become so accustomed to with her daughters.

And then things had taken a turn for the worst.

There had been a worried exclamation, a rushing about of bodies that she couldn't understand from the haze of labor, and then her son, her beautiful baby son, was taken out of her sight.

Now, he lay in another room, on death's doorstep at not even a day old.

David kept up a strong front, for their daughters if nothing else. But the cracks in his eyes were easy to see. They'd always been easy to see, every time they had been out on a mission to a settlement with casualties from the grimm. It was good that Caroline, a deer faunus and very dear family friend, was there to help with the children as well. Their innocent questions were breaking Dave's heart.

A sudden and unearthly chill settled over her, overbearing and seemingly monstrous. Old instincts from her time as a huntress took over, tensing her tired muscles and sharpening her eyes which darted about the room, looking for danger.

There were a few medical employees that she could see outside. They had been shooting not-so-subtle glances of pity towards her ever since the news had been spread through the grapevine. Now they stiffened, sending wary glances all around, and muttering silently.

Many of them glanced at her.

She knew what they were thinking.

Despite the preposterousness of the idea, she couldn't help but wonder herself.

Had it happened?

Had she missed it?

If so, then in a sickenly pragmatic way, she was glad she did, she remembered seeing the screen, monitoring his vitals, vitals that grew fainter and fainter. If she had seen it flat-lining, it would have broken her entirely.

The chill faded, and suddenly, the clinic was filled with the sounds of beeping machines and the dull, ever present, and muted roar of heaters. They hadn't started any erratic activity or anything of the sort. They, much like the staff, had just gone unnaturally, deathly quiet.

Another cry called out from somewhere in the building, and that seemed to get the employees to snap out of their stupor, resuming their work with a distracted air.

"Move! I need to grab the father." A voice demanded from outside, and a man, Dr. Anthony, walked briskly past the doorway.

Fresh tears stung behind her eyes, despite the earlier conundrum and the fact that she had already drained them twice before. How cruel, that another woman be given a gift tonight, and she, robbed of one.

She wouldn't cry though. Not again. Not until she finally received that terrible and gut-wrenching news.

Then she could wail and whimper a third time.

Dr. Anthony's voice could be heard hurrying back, deep in frenzied discussion.

"-ppened. I've never seen anyth-" he passed the doorway faster than he did the first time, racing with another man down the hallway, voice quickly becoming discernible.

She blinked her green bloodshot eyes. That had looked like Dave.

For a short while, the sounds of the workplace were her only companion, accompanied by the occasional cry of a new born babe.

Suddenly, shouting was heard, muffled from several doors down. It died out as fast as it began, though it did a well enough job of leaving the rest of the staff looking uncomfortable and quiet.

Then, footsteps once more, and whispers, bewildered whispers. The staff looked stunned, the few she could see. There was another noise with the footsteps as well; crying, from two sources.

A figure appeared in the doorway. It took her a moment to recognize her husband. After all, Dave had only ever cried once, during the birth of their first daughter ten years ago. He was shaking, and in his arms was a bundle.

A whimpering bundle.

They locked eyes with each other.

"June!" He gasped out his pet name for her with a sob.

Juniper's heart leapt into her throat.

The distance between them had never felt so long as he softly, gently, walked over to her in a daze.

"He… he's," he stammered slowly, depositing the lump into arms that she never felt reach out.

She stared vacantly at the scrunched up face, that gave off a voice cracking cry from the gentle handling.

"He's okay!"

It would seem that she had broken her word. She had told herself that she wouldn't break until her son had passed. Now, the dam she had built vanished, and every drop that had yet to fall streamed down her face.

She sobbed.

Her boy! Her baby boy was okay!

Thick arms wrapped her shoulders, and she lay her head on the broad chest of her lover, who showered her hair with kisses. Neither of them took their eyes off the miracle in front of them. They didn't even blink, afraid that doing so would break the dream.

"You scared me," she whimpered at the tiny blind face, "don't ever do that again young man."

A half-hearted but heart-felt threat, without any heat. She would not survive another scare like that.

As staff members clapped and cheered outside, and as three blonde blurs shot into the room followed by a family friend that carried two more, David and Juniper Arc's small world could not feel anymore blessed.

They were lucky for experiencing so great a blessing.

The rest of the world was experiencing a nightmare.

---

The Outer God's action would have far and unseen effects that would affect the entirety of the world.

It started an unseen terror infused wave that began in Ansel, small and insignificant Ansel, and slowly swept the globe with a dizzying acceleration.

Normal people, awake and going about their daily lives, would stop, rooted in place from a nameless and inexplicable terror that seemed to be hiding everywhere. Animals panicked, children whimpered and the birds hid in the trees with a deathly quiet. Sound itself would be muted until the wave passed, leaving upright people the world over withdrawn and confused on what had just transpired, and their animals jittery.

Hunters, whether mid mission, or resting in towns or homes, would stiffen, flare their aura, finger their weapons, or glance around at any seedy-looking individuals that happened to be nearby.

The Grimm, those ancient and ever present enemies of mankind, rather than congregate and flock towards the affected populace, seemed affected themselves. Hunters and scouts would later report Beowolves, Ursa, and other forms rooted in place and dazed, as if confounded by the all present negativity.

Those mid combat were also affected for a time, but their situations demanded action, and the need to fight off the effects.

Whoever recovered first was often victorious.

---

Across the four kingdoms and Frontier, agents, spread out and under the banner of one of two sides in a secret war, would shudder and wonder to themselves on whether their position was compromised or not for a time.

One of them, a young man with black hair, and red eyes, recognized the phenomenon for what it was, though he knew not the source, nor did he have any understanding of it.

He knew who might though. A surge of magic, and then he was gone, replaced by a dark bird that flew above the trees and towards a certain academy.

He needed to speak with Ozpin now.

---

An aging man sat, drinking coffee in a room of clocks, when he was affected. He sat upright and narrowed his eyes. He wasn't nearly as crippled from the magical spike as the rest of the populace, but he still felt it.

In certain ways, he felt it even more than them.

It felt old, like him.

In his mind, there was only one possible source, thousands of miles away.

Was this her doing?

Surely, it must be.

He picked up his mug and took a sip from it, deep in thought.

What was it?

What was she doing?

He couldn't think of an answer, none that could explain the evil energy that had invaded his office and then promptly disappeared.

He wanted answers.

Scratch that. In this great game, he needed answers if he were to stay ahead.

Perhaps a visit to Haven was in order?

---

Far away, in a castle surrounded by tainted lands, a demon brooded. She, like everyone, had felt it too.

She didn't feel fear. She didn't know how to anymore, for she was the apex predator.

The magic that came to her wasn't intimidating in the slightest. It felt old, but it also felt young and fresh if that were in any way understandable.

But in her eyes, it was an act of attempted intimidation. A puffed up challenger. A gorilla beating its chest to a dragon.

It wasn't threatening, but it was of note. She might have to look into it.

In front of her and below the steps to her throne, a girl in rags whimpered. Her eyes focused on her at the sound and she smirked.

She couldn't have picked a better time to start a new batch of agents.

---

Those who were awake for the ordeal would recover shortly, for the most part. Life was, unsurprisingly, full of danger on a planet such as Remnant. Full of terror and mystery too. They had become all too accustomed to strange happenings, though they were far from the strangeness of that night.

They would write off the instance as random hallucination, or a fanciful daydream they had become too engrossed in, or their instincts warning them of nearby danger that moved away from them.

Some would blame daily or unique problems in their lives that they seemed to have fretted too much over.

A few, driven by the strange event and concerned for their safety, would attempt to contact their local law enforcement. They would find the call centers already overtaxed and beleaguered, swamped in a wave of calls that would last through the night. After all, they were the lucky ones.

They hadn't been asleep.

---

She was running.

Running for her life.

The tribe, those kin she had chosen over the family she had started and deserted months ago, remained behind her where they had been packing up camp, slaughtered. They had just gotten word from a scout earlier that day of a gargantuan horde of grim, heading in their direction.

They should have just left the camp.

She had, in a moment of confidence granted to her by the power she held in her tribe, oh-so-foolishly decided to take a nap, and told those beneath her to wake her should anything happen.

Something happened alright.

They were attacked, but not by the grimm.

Something had beaten them to the camp.

Something far worse.

Something unkillable.

The tribe didn't know that, and so they had fought the intruder. And now, all of the tribe was gone, pulped and/or devoured.

All except her.

Branches grasped at her, tearing hair, skin, and clothes, and still she kept running.

Have to get away! Have to get away! The mantra kept swimming through her head, over and over and over and over and over again.

...Hahahahaha…

Her pace increased at the laughter behind her, to the side of her, in front of her. ALL AROUND HER!

It was night time now, and trees swayed without breeze, stars peeking through the leaves and limbs to twinkle and wink at her like eyes.

No…

They were eyes. Ugly black and bloodshot eyes without lids that rolled in tree trunks and twigs. They gazed at everything, the ground, the sky, each other, themselves, but most of them stared behind her. Those she drew near pierced her with hungry stares, watching her incessantly.

They glowed in the dark, and that was a small mercy.

She could see those.

But in the shadows of the forest there were things.

Strange things.

Dark things that hungered, that called to her, and screamed for blood. Her blood.

There were only flashes of them, small glimpses of skins that quickly drew away from the ever present and sickly green light that pervaded everything now. They looked like skins. She hoped they were skins.

Running so soon?

She ran harder. Harder than she ever remembered running in her life. Images of an earlier life plagued her conscience, blonde hair and a rugged smile, holding an equally blonde head to his chest.

Why did she feel that voice was talking about more than her current flight?

"IA! IA!"

The booming cry sounded from behind her, jarring her bones and vibrating her organs.

She didn't dare look behind her.

She did.

She regretted it.

Beyond the trees in the direction she ran from, something inconceivably titanic moved.

It blocked out the stars and the mountains behind it, and it shifted and shambled in ways no living creature should be able to.

A glass breaking shriek with an accompanying shadow tore her gaze from the monster.

It was a Nevermore, a big one. Easily the size of a house. And yet it was tiny compared to the Thing she just witnessed. It had seen her running, had sensed her fear, and was now swooping down to her with razor sharp claws extended to eviscerated her.

A larger shadow passed over her, and a clawed and blackened hand that dwarfed it reached out and grasped it out of the air with a squawk. It retracted, her eyes following its trajectory to an impossibly huge maw rimmed with teeth and tongues alike.

She tore her eyes away. She didn't want to see what happened to it.

She knew it wanted to do the same to her.

"N'GHFT EHYE AH GEB!" It roared, and she screamed in response.

"I don't want to die…I don't want to die!" she tearfully ranted, picking up volume until her screaming was pounding her own eardrums.

The trees, hungry for her just as much as the titan behind her, joined in the hunt. Branches bent before her, reaching, and roots erupted from the soil, wiggling and writhing. Mouths split their bark and began to hiss at her in words no human could ever mimic.

One caught her leg, tripping her and sending her sprawling onto a bed of warm and uncomfortably comfortable grass. Her sword, which she had been keeping tight in her grasp, was knocked loose from her hand, landing a few feet from her.

The animated vegetation could have killed her then, torn her into bloody hair and cloth covered chunks of gore.

But they weren't that merciful.

They backed away, forming a clearing around her. Laughter rang out again, warped, evil and mocking, growing in fervor and madness like a deranged scientist as a deep dark shadow descended over her.

She looked up, and though she saw the moon and it's shattered remains, it was swallowed by the faceless maw that leered down at her.

She crawled backwards, sapped of the strength to run.

She needed an escape. A way out of this nightmare. They should never have made their camp anywhere near here- no, anywhere on the same continent- as this place.

In her retreat, her hand touched her sword. And then she remembered! Her sword! She could have slapped herself for her stupidity right then and there, but there was literally no time.

She crawled to her knees, then onto shaking legs off of the bed she lay on. The figure above her stooped over, beginning to reach down with its alien looking claws. It's grin grew ever wider.

"VULGTMAH 'DRN PH'NGLUI NNN N'GHFT!" It roared, teeth the size of trucks literally splitting its head in half.

She activated her semblance with a slash of Omen, the swing nearly throwing her to the ground again. She hadn't picked a specific person to teleport to, she just had to get away from here.

"NYARLATHOTEP!" It thundered with finality, and she screamed back and threw herself into the portal.

She stumbled out, bleary-eyed, tear-stained and bewildered into a well lit room.

A child was crying, but she didn't care.

She… she was safe. She was alive! She dropped her sword in a moment of exhausted relief.

She looked down distastefully at her tattered clothing.

It… wasn't. It wasn't damaged at all. Shaking hands roamed her clothes, her arms, her hair, her face.

Nothing, not a scratch on her.

A nightmare, she realized.

A super terrifyingly realistic one. Probably one of the worst she'd had in months, maybe years.

She took a moment to survey her surroundings; a house, by the looks of things, a dining room to be specific.

A sharp intake of breath told her the room was occupied.

She turned to the new figure, and stopped.

That face is way too familiar, she realized as slowly clearing and widening red eyes met already wide blue.

"...Raven!?" Taiyang whispered in shock, clutching their several month old child close.

Fuck.

This was one of the last people she would have wanted to go to. She blamed the nightmare.

She had to get out of here now.

She looked down to her blade, Omen, and stooped for it.

"Oh no you don't!" Cried a third person, their slippered foot landing on the weapon and kicking it back behind them.

She looked up with a snarl, one that quickly died in her throat as her gaze caught this new pair of eyes.

Silver, narrowed and very angry eyes.

"We're gonna have little fucking talk." Summer Rose growled.

Summer never cursed in her life.

Ever.

As she stared like a deer in headlights at the God of War in a nightgown, Raven Branwen realized once again that she had left a nightmare.

And had stumbled her way into something that was probably worse.

---

Her experience, the ending aside, was one similar to millions of people across the night.

Evil lucid dreams, where persons would feel trapped, hunted by nameless giants or form shifting things that screamed and guffawed at their plight. Some were lucky, and had friends and loved ones close by that they could crawl towards and huddle with for the rest of the night.

Others weren't so lucky, having to weather the storm on their own.

They were victim to the most horrible events that night.

For Nyarlathotep's manic actions and resulting pulse did more than just announce his presence to the world.

Many people, dregs of society and homeless people forced to live on the streets, siezed up in their sleep, gibbered uncontrollably, and collapsed.

They rose not moments later, unfamiliar with themselves.

They stared at the roads, the trees, and the street lamps in wonder.

They looked to the stars and smiled in glee before taking off, running, dancing, whooping and hollering into the night, never to be seen again.

Some people who were not the targets of these strange bouts of insanity disappeared with them.

Out in forests, rivers, oceans and sands, things began moving.

---

Within her lamp in the vault of Haven, Jinn stirred. She groggy blinked at a foreign sensation, one she did not like.

In an act of suspicion, she looked out, searching for the monster she had guided to oblivion.

What she saw horrified her.

It was still there, that black shadow, but muted now, it wasn't as unseen as it was before.

It had taken her advice it would seem, and had then decided to have a change of heart.

It wanted to play a bit.

But what horrified her were the other patches of darkness.

Dozens of them.

Hundreds of them.

"No…" she whispered in silent horror.

It wasn't alone after all.

---

It was a crash through the house that alerted Ignus Goodwitch that something was wrong.

His daughters had decided to visit, and had gone to bed along with his wife a few hours ago.

He was in his study, smoking, trying to shake off that unexplainable terror he had felt an hour or so ago.

He stood up, warily activating his weapon, for the Goodwitch clan had long been a lineage of warriors dedicated to fighting the grimm since before the Great War, a family tradition kept to this day.

Another crash sounded through the vista as he headed towards the door.

He opened it, just in time to intercept a tangled and frantic head of blonde hair.

His eldest daughter Glynda.

"Father!" She gasped in fright, and Ignus felt his concern grow exponentially.

"Cecilia! She- she's gone strange!"

He moved around her, stalking down the hall towards the room his daughters had been sharing, another crash breaking the silence.

Cecilia Goodwitch, like the rest of their family, had her aura unlocked. She was a rare breed, having unlocked her semblance in addition to her aura during the incantation those few years ago.

They had decided to call it Onyx Passion, an element type semblance based in earth, one that allowed her to shape, move, and, to a limited extent, animate stones, clay, soil, and gems to a minute detail.

Fighting however, was not in her blood, her mindset being one of flightful fancy, and artistic endeavor.

And so, in a family of huntsmen, she used her power to create art for the world, with statues, stone bas-reliefs, and the occasional poem when she felt it.

She was also prone to fanciful daydream, and went through life with a general aloofness that, while sometimes trying, was mostly endearing, considering her success.

He arrived at the room. The crashes had stopped now, and he opened the door.

Giggling was the sound that greeted him, deranged giggling. Chunks of stone and rock littered the once-polished wooden floor, now scratched.

In the center of the room, his daughter stooped, bent before a stone slab that sat in front of her, with parchment underneath.

She straightened up, a hand leaving the parchment as she admired her work.

It dripped red.

"Yes! Finally! Yes!" She giggled once more, bringing a red and wet digit to her mouth to suck on.

"He won't see it. He can't. Not yet. It'll be years before he can see, and truly admire, and when that time comes… Oh, how he'll love it!"

The patriarch stared, stupefied. Was that blood? The gash on her hand, and scratches on her forearms answered his question.

"...Cecilia?" He called out after a disturbed hesitation.

The woman jerked in response, whirling around to face him with bewildered confusion.

"Father?" She asked, and the innocent tone iced his innards.

"Cecilia, what…" he paused, "What are you doing? What's gotten into you?"

The woman before him didn't answer, looking to the chunks on the ground around her as if seeing them for the first time. Her breath was shallow.

"Darling, you're bleeding…" She brought her arm up at the statement, twisting her hand around to catch the Crimson light that glinted off it.

She saw the slab and stilled.

Ignus watched his daughter shudder, then turn to him with shiny eyes.

"Daddy," she whimpered, "daddy, I'm scared."

She was twenty three years old, and living on her own. That did not matter as Ignus closed in and wrapped his arms around his frantic and distraught daughter. Behind him, Glynda entered the room, surveying the damaged floors with wary concern. She brought her eyes over to the undamaged stone slab, and she blinked in confusion at what she saw.

It portrayed a man. A young looking man, mid stride as if walking towards the observer. It was a most highly detailed work. Probably one of her sister's best creations.

That only made it more astounding.

Behind the man, loomed a cavernous, and funnel-like mouth, riddled with gaping mismatching teeth, and twisting feelers and eyes of all things. It's appearance gave her the impression that the man was coming out of the maw. He wasn't fleeing though. His step looked controlled and collected. His stride was with unknown purpose. In his hand was a blade that seemed to twist and bend like a flame. His other was a firm fist. His face was shadowed, except for his eyes. Eyes that burned hard with rage and madness, and looked through her with a killing stare.

She lowered her eyes from the unsightly stone to the parchment below, and her heart froze.

There, written in swirling and blood-dripping script, was a poem. She read it silently, and despite there being only three people in the room, soon to be more as the sounds of feet coming closer told her, she could have sworn to the city council and a full jury that someone else was there. There in the room, or out in the night, screaming the words in ecstasy alongside her.

Do you ever feel

An emotion so real

As that alien ancient fear?

Do you shudder in fright

Awake through the night

From the dreams that we all now hear?

Fate's string has been broken

And dark things have woken

Keep close those whom you hold dear

Through our world they spread

These things that were dead

The Great Old Ones are now here!

---

What is this? A new story?

Why yes dear readers, yes it is.

But what of the Old story? Your first?

That… is probably gonna get deleted. I just really don't like it.

Don't get me wrong, I still have the idea! But it's… Not the same anymore. I found myself rethinking one thing, then two, then three, then- It really just led to the entire story being broken apart.

If I go back, which I'd like to, I'll have to rebuild it from the ground up.

To any new and twisted maniacs who stumbled onto this thing (you have to be twisted, you're looking up the Cthulhu Mythos) I give a very plain forewarning: I have a really bad thing about timing.

Anyone who read my first story probably has very bitter memories about that. To them and to any new readers I humbly request:

Please don't ask for consistent updates. I know that people want more(I hope that people will want more). I always want moar from the stories I read myself, but asking for faster updates makes me feel pressured, and in my opinion, pressured writing tends to be sloppy writing.

Now, I didn't intend for this chapter to be so big. It just grew like a tumor, to be honest. The next few chapters are most definitely not going to be so large.

If you got down to here, then that surely means you read it, so please:

Review! Critique! Flame the bitch, I don't care! Fucking thing came to me one night in a bathroom, and now it just! Wont! Leave! My! Head!

If this website had audio recording, I'd be screaming.

But please, forget a young man's ranting, and have a good day.