Author's Note
This chapter, along with chapters 3 and 4, will be rewritten in the near future.
Chapter 1: Prologue - Fate's Cleaver
Becoming an agent of fate probably isn't a job many would consider, though, it would probably be more accurate to say it's not one many would be offered.
One does not simply sign up online, fill out a form, or ask a primordial force of existence if they can work for it. You have to be chosen, hand picked by a concept few can even begin to truly understand.
Such was my situation 30 years ago.
Truth be told, I had a pretty great life. I'd been working as a bodyguard and assassin for one of the largest crime syndicates on the inner disc of The Void, but all good things must come to an end eventually.
You see, I grew up in a small little town on the outskirts of the inner disc, a nice little place, fairly good people. I found my way there a few weeks after I first formed, took over the job of a gunsmith a few years later after doing some work for the previous owner. I was good at what I did too, building, cleaning, shooting.
Some time later I became the town's sheriff, after the previous one was killed, I tried to stay inside the law, but you end up having to make deals with bad people. Eventually I just decided to go all the way and became a gun for hire, left the town and all of my friends.
I'd been working for this syndicate for the last decade and had managed to stay away from their more detestable businesses. If they wanted me to kill a rival, sure, keep one of their higher ups alive during negotiations, no problem.
At the time I'd thought everything was going fine, that I could stay out of the darker corners of the organization, hindsight is 20/20.
The Borman syndicate was massive, and as such, they needed resources. Weapons, vehicles, money, but most importantly territory. Every now and again they'd take over small, lesser known villages or towns on the edge of the central disc. On one of these invasive operations, they targeted mine.
That morning there were just about 5,000 people in my old town, all going about their days, working, playing, living, by nightfall everyone was dead. Shot, stabbed, burned alive in some cases, it was a classic scorched earth operation.
I was called in afterwards, to help find anyone who had escaped into the surroundings, no one had. It wasn't until hours later, when one of my employers was discussing what they were going to do with the land, that I realized where we were, what had happened, and who had done it.
After that I'd gone on a rampage, killing anyone associated with the syndicate. While they were a large fighting force, they were poorly trained, used to killing civilians or other gangs that got in their way.
I hunted them down to the last, better weaponry, training and shock allowing me a quick, albeit hard victory. By the time I was done I'd killed sixty five members of the same syndicate that had hired me to protect them, but I decided that wasn't enough.
It took me five months before I had planned out how to burn their entire business to the ground, it took one more to do so. Hidden bunkers, supply lines, even their headquarters in one of the large cities. I'd worked with them for long enough that I knew all their secrets, and their enemies.
I worked with whoever I had to, every gang, rival, and law force on the disc. Raids, ambushes, and a full all out assault at the very end.
Whatever I did earned fate's attention, and shortly after I was given the offer of a lifetime.
45 BF, Prea, The Central Disc
A sound, so far removed from what could be called a voice, worked its way into my skull.
"Hello, Jack Zephyr." Even so, I could understand it perfectly.
My gun, an unremarkable black military rifle, snapped to my shoulder, my finger ready to pull its trigger at a moment's notice. Yet, there was nothing there, the room was still empty, save the body at my feet and the expensive desk in front of me.
"You are safe, for the time." The second time it spoke I realized something, the feeling, the presence behind its voice. I was speaking to something far removed from what I had seen before.
"What are you? How am I hearing you?" I had many questions, I was tired still from the days before, from all the fighting. Even so I could not mistake this as a trick of my mind, I knew what those felt like.
"I believe most mortal beings call me fate." Was not the answer I expected to hear.
"Fate is a concept." I was skeptical, to say the least.
"Oh? And are you not a concept yourself? Concepts are simply things your kind invented to try to understand the world."
If this thing was fate, then I knew I had to ask it why. Why had all of this happened? To what end was all of this necessary. I opened my mouth to ask, but it seemed to know my question already.
"Necessary?" A laugh followed. "What makes you believe this was necessary? You could have stayed quiet, that was your choice, just as it was theirs to slaughter your friends."
"But you're fate! If you exist, how was this choice ours to begin with!?" I was angry now, understandably, however misguided it was at the time.
"You seem to have the wrong impression of what I am. You would have acted the same way regardless of my existence. That is what free will is, is it not? While I may know how things will occur, I do not influence them."
"Then everyone, they all died for nothing? That's it?" I was distraught, what would I do now? Perhaps I could find work with something inside the law again, like I had before. That wouldn't stop the other criminals from coming after me though, even if they'd helped me destroy Borman, I was too dangerous in the long run.
"Perhaps, or perhaps not. I have an offer for you, Jack Zephyr." I was surprised, but before I could say anything it spoke again. "You can leave this place, try to make a new life, all the while worrying about a knife in your back."
It paused, my interest was growing.
"Or, you can work for me. There are many more problems throughout the multiverse Jack, men just like the ones you fought, and some even worse. They threaten to damage reality itself, however I am unable to do anything about it myself. You will be given whatever you need to complete the tasks I give you, so long as they are done. It will be incredibly dangerous, you will face creatures the likes of which you could never imagine."
Finally, all it asked was one question. "Do you agree, Jack Zephyr? Will you be my blade?"
I realize now, that I hadn't thought this through, I was exhausted, admittedly scared, and confused. I had spent almost six months in a constant state of fight or flight, and anyone could see it.
I wasn't thinking straight, but the part of me that was thinking agreed with fate's logic, and I made a choice that would change everything.
"Yes."
43 BF, AH-587, Installation-04
I was running, as fast as I possibly could. It was my third job for fate, something that I was told would be a simple assassination. It had gone bad very quickly, the target had been a deviant, a person who had voluntarily left their universe and had interfered with another, disrupting the natural events that would take place.
A bolt of plasma flew by my shoulder, splashing against a nearby tree and melting part of its trunk. A pair of crystalline needles slammed into another before detonating, sending a tree crashing down behind me.
I could hear my pursuers behind me, yelling in an alien language I didn't know. They were big reptilian things with a split jaw and digitigrade legs, I'd fought a few already, but these were significantly stronger, with better shielding and armor.
If I got hit I was dead, my holo shield was shot, and I had already lost my right eye, fortunately the target was dead, and my ship was-
"AHHH!" Searingpain was all I could feel, my right shoulder was burning, the joint was a mess, melted flesh and bone was dripping down my arm, and I couldn't feel or move anything.
Pulling out my pistol, a small caliber coil gun contained within the frame of a hi-tech revolver, I fired off three shots, the sonic cracks announcing the death of my pursuers. There were more behind them though, and I needed to keep moving.
Sprinting faster than I ever had before, I could see my ship through the trees. I had landed in a clearing beyond the forest I was currently in, and I was so very close to the edge.
Tapping my earpiece, I sent a command to open the loading ramp. Sprinting inside, I ran to the cockpit and activated its launch sequence. The shields and plating would be enough to survive what the alien fighter craft could throw at us, and once I was in space I would be untouchable.
It was with this thought that I remembered my arm and eye, resulting in the feeling of the destroyed body parts coming back tenfold.
Holding back a scream of pain, I sent a command to the onboard AI. Tapping a button on a terminal I spoke into the console. "Prepare medibay- agh!" I grit my teeth, "Prepare medibay for an immediate scan." I took a quick look at my arm, "And for an amputation."
13 BF, LZ-89, Unnamed World
There's so much in the universe, and with how short the lifespans of most species are relative to it, no one will ever see it all, if we're being honest, you'll probably never even see all of what is around you at this very moment.
Time moves much too quickly for that to be a possibility.
A bird had been flying overhead, its tiny wings making the slowest of movements, to the average person however, you'd barely be able to make out its feathers. Zipping around, forwards, sideways, backwards even, Hummingbirds were some of the most agile creatures ever seen.
I flipped a knife in my hand, looking away from the bird, and toward my targets. It was good practice, training my abilities while on a mission, but I could feel the headache coming now. I'd have to finish soon.
The three boys, that was what they were, probably no older than eighteen years, friends probably.
In another time they might have been the saviors of this world, heroes from another universe, unlucky enough to fall through a rift between this world and theirs, unfortunately they would never get the chance.
Lining up their heads, I readied myself and threw my arm forward. My blade, a titanium bowie knife with a handle made of maple wood, slid across their throats. Thrown from my hand at speeds nearly faster than the eye could see, lodging itself in a tree across from them
Then Time resumed its natural speed.
The shock is always the first thing, then horror, and if they happen to see me, confusion.
Voidborn had taken to calling us Fate's Cleavers, fitting enough.
Most of my jobs involved tracking down and killing deviants. From what I knew, if left unchecked beings from one universe interacting with another, could cause incredible damage to reality, and it was my job to eliminate them.
It'd been a while, almost thirty years, since I'd been inducted into Fate's service. The time had gone by quicker than I'd expected.
After I lost my arm and eye, fate had taken it upon herself, apparently concepts have a sex, to make me even better at what I did. A bionic arm and eye, chemical and physical enhancements, better weapons and equipment, and most importantly teaching me to manipulate time.
I do not claim to be an expert, it takes incredible concentration on my part to even slow it down, and I have not yet figured out how to stop it. At the very least whatever I touch is slowed down with me, otherwise I wouldn't be able to wear clothes, or use weapons. I couldn't move others with me yet either.
Looking down I saw that the three boys have stopped gurgling on their own blood, in fact they stopped moving entirely, dead then. With that I went ahead and gathered any items off them that could show their otherworldly origin, and destroyed the objects using a powerful acid. Burying the bodies is the last thing that I did before calling my ship.
Like me, my transport has been updated and improved as well, it is a fairly large size, 73 meters long and 72 in width. It's shaped like a triangle, with the large wings going all the way from back to past its cockpit, with two massive engines in the back. Its weapons included plasma cannons, small caliber railguns, and seeking air to air missile systems.
The frame itself had been something I'd purchased during a particularly long chase with one of my targets. The mission had taken me almost a year to complete, and I'd liked the ship, called a Krait mk-2, enough to buy it permanently.
Breaking through the atmosphere I left the cockpit as artificial gravity turned on. Heading to my quarters I hung up my gear in the armory, then headed to the showers.
Some of you may not like me by now, I don't blame you, much of what I do could be seen as evil by those who do not know the truth. Speaking of truth, I imagine you have seen me use terms like The Void, and are probably wondering what it all means, a full explanation will come in time.
For now just understand this, The Void is what forms from the dead and dying universes throughout the multiverse, whenever a universe is consumed by entropy, artificial or natural, some pieces are shed into the space between all universes, forming with other fractured worlds, The Void.
Finishing my shower, I walked out and got dressed, a pair of dark gray combat pants, a lighter gray button down shirt, a maroon vest, black boots, and a dark brown overcoat. A few colleagues of mine have told me I look like a mix between a soldier and a "cowboy", not quite sure what that is.
Securing my belt and holsters I head back to the armory. I'd learned to use many weapons throughout the last century, however I always gravitated toward a mix of incredible range and close quarters combat. When you can slow time, aiming five kilometer shots is significantly easier, and you become nearly untouchable in a melee.
As such, my weapons of choice are a single shot railgun, a weapon with almost unmatched power and precision, as well as a pair of plasma pistols, both modled after the same revolvers I'd used when I'd joined Fate's agents, and finally is the titanium bowie knife.
"ATTENTION: Docking at spaceport 0-Cetrin, bay 9." Echoed mechanical voice throughout the ship.
Cetrin was the current base of operations for myself and the rest of Fate's agents, it was where we were given our missions, and a place of comfort for when we were not out hunting down our targets.
While I would like to take credit for all of the work we do, there are in fact many more agents than just me, 99 more. Some of us are better at certain things, for example I'm not a hacker, nor am I particularly good at large scale warfare.
This means that there's usually an agent for any job, I myself was pretty normal though. I was a hunter, tracking down and killing deviants most of the time.
As I walked down the ramp of my ship I saw someone waiting at the edge of the ship bay. A woman in a black catsuit covered in very dark gray and red armor, fairly tall just under six feet, on her head was an enclosed helmet shaped like a ballistic mask, colored black with a single red stripe running through the middle.
The outfit itself showed nothing of the woman beneath, completely covering her over every inch of skin.
She carried no weapons, but I knew that hardly mattered if we were to fight one another, I'd seen her fists blow through the armor on a tank, and she practiced enough magic to burn cities to the ground.
"Hello Nine." Nine was an agent like myself, between all of us everyone was simply called by their number, given the dangers of our job any attachment usually ended badly.
Out of the others, Nine was the one I'd interacted most with, and the only one who had worked with me in the field. A bit of an odd character for sure, generally calm, however she could be irritated under the right circumstances. And if you actually managed to piss her off, then you would be lucky to get off with multiple broken bones.
"Hello? That's all Eleven? I'm disappointed." She chuckled.
"What are you doing here?"
"Touchy today are we? Can't I just say hi, see how you're doing?" There was no seriousness to the question.
I looked at her blankly, the bright yellow lenses where her eyes were not showing any emotion in kind. "I suppose that's fine." I finally said.
"See? That wasn't so hard. You're one step away from being like Twenty three, not a good thing by the way." She laughed again, "Now then, there is a real reason I came to get you, follow me."
She started walking away towards the lift system.
I didn't move at first, causing Nine to turn back around. "Come on, Fate has a job she specifically requested you for."
That was never a good sign, typically we would pick our own targets out of a list, there were quite a few deviants, corrupt organizations, and troublesome beings throughout the multiverse. Being chosen meant it was especially important, and that if unchecked, it could have a ripple effect throughout other universes.
Most of my work has nothing to do with death, ninety percent of my job is tracking down my target, and only very rarely do they put up much of a fight. Thus I became a very good detective, not the best of us all, that honor went to number twenty three, but good enough to find my mark within a few weeks if they were locked to a single planet.
If fate wanted me specifically, this mission was especially time sensitive,
"So," I began, "any idea what the mission is?"
Nine giggled at that, "What? Nervous now? And here I thought you were always so stoic Eleven."
"No, just curious, these sorts of things don't happen very often."
"Well you don't need to worry Eleven," she paused, we had stopped before the main elevator, a large platform used to move supplies or people between the different levels of Cetrin. "from what I know it's nothing new, just a bit more important, needs to be done quickly."
"I see." This would most likely be another simple enough assassination then. "How fast will it need to be done?"
"I'm not sure, didn't get that much information, Fate'll tell you when you see her."
The elevator stopped, we were in the central dome, a massive space filled with amenities for returning agents, and facilities to keep our skills and equipment sharp. Right in front of us was the mission board, a large holographic console showing pending contracts any agent could take on, there were dozens shown.
A sudden voice came from the machine, "Please step forward agent 11." Doing so I heard the voice of fate, the sound still inhuman and incomprehensible, yet something I could understand perfectly fine.
"Hello Eleven, I take it you have completed your current job?", at my nod she continued, "Good, I have something quite urgent I need you to take care of," a pause, "there is a deviant heading toward the M-198 sector, they have done so willingly, I can only conclude that they are planning to do interfere with one of the universes."
This was new, very few deviants left their home worlds willingly, and most didn't have the capability to do so anyway. "How did this happen? A god?"
"That seems to be the most likely reason, does this bother you?" She didn't sound particularly concerned.
"Of course not, most gods are incapable of interacting with the physical world. I was just wondering if perhaps this is the natural course of history for this world?"
Fate scoffed, "Not in the slightest, while this world could interact with a few others, this is not one of them. I am assigning you the mission to hunt down and eliminate this deviant. However there will be restrictions this time, the spirits and gods of this world are remarkably strong, and you will not draw their attention."
I knew what that meant, in the case that a universe has a being strong enough to affect the Void, it was best to leave behind as few traces of our presence as possible. This meant I would need to use technologically appropriate weapons and equipment, significantly inferior to my current armaments. "I understand, send me the file on M-198, I'll get ready."
Before I could turn around, Fate called one last time, "One last thing, I ask that you and Nine do this together, I would like to minimize the risk of this going wrong, and Nine has a skill set well suited to this task."
A quick glance to my right and I could see Nine leaning against a wall, I could almost feel the smirk through her faceplate. "Of course, you know I'd love to help out." Nine chimed in upon meeting my gaze.
"Perfect, you have three months to complete this assignment, good hunting.", and with that the screen fell silent. Leaving Nine and I alone to get ready for the trip outside the Void. Already walking back to the elevator, Nine waved to me to follow again.
"M-198 is pretty far away, we'll have time to review the data on the way there, let's do something while your ship gets refueled, I have a few ideas~."
I hummed, of course, "How about a spar? I didn't have much of a fight the last few missions, I'd rather not get rusty." It was true, most that I was sent to eliminate recently hadn't been very powerful, and I rarely fought large quantities, so large scale battles almost never occurred. I'd missed it more than I liked to admit.
Nine snorted at that, "Of course you want to fight." she walked around me and draped her arms over my shoulders, a sensual gesture, if not for the armor she wore, because of that it just became uncomfortable. "Fine, I'll oblige you this time, might as well I suppose, seeing as how I'm coming with you."
The pit, as it is called, is a state of the art combat arena, fit for simulations against many different foes, or for battles between agents. One hundred meters in diameter, and capable of simulating any environment using an advanced hard light system, it was the perfect place to prepare for the coming mission.
I had checked the data sent by Fate on our way here, much to Nine's annoyance. The world we were going to had a mostly medieval society, swords, spears, bow and arrow, horses, metal plate armor, and magic.
Thus I opted for weapons fitting what we would use while there, my titanium bowie knife, a dozen throwing daggers, a one handed arming sword, a larger two handed blade that would just as easily break bone as it would cleave flesh, and a crossbow with a massive 1 ton draw weight.
While early firearms existed within this world, they were simply too inaccurate at longer distances for my use, thus an extremely heavy crossbow was the next decision. It would punch through a steel plate, and the person behind it, with the metal bolts I had acquired for it, and I could accurately fire it up to half a kilometer away.
The draw weight of the behemoth wasn't a problem either, as my robotic arm had enough strength to pull back the cable one handed.
Nine had not grabbed any weapons, however her attire had changed, over the top of her bodysuit she was wearing more medieval style plate armor, with metal bracers, shin guards and a chestplate. Even now I couldn't see even a centimeter of skin, not that I wanted too of course.
I suppose I should mention that while in this arena, neither of us would take any real damage, all the trauma would simply be converted to a tiring effect, while this meant debilitating injuries would not play a role in our fight, it meant we would both survive whatever the other did.
"10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2…," went the arena countdown, we had chosen a forest with a clearing directly in the middle, it had plenty of fallen trees, rocks and other debris to hide behind, or use as extra weaponry, until finally, "1, BEGIN!"
While Nine enjoyed teasing me about my decision to spar, I knew for a fact she liked fighting even more than myself. Perhaps not fighting, but simply causing pain. That quality made her a powerful agent, and a complete sadist if you were on her bad side.
The aforementioned Nine, 100 meters away from me at the other edge of the arena, shot off like a rocket, a black and red blur that's sheer speed blew the land around where she'd begun away in a shockwave.
I'd have to be smart about this, I couldn't keep up without using time manipulation. Activating the power I readied my own attack.
Two bolts of steel flew from my crossbow in succession, loaded one after another faster than the eye could follow, both missing as she weaved to the side, and blowing through a pair of trees behind her, shredding massive holes through both sides of the thick wood.
I didn't have any time at all to admire the destruction however, Nine was only feet away by now, having crossed the 100 meter distance in less than a second. With a thought, the world slowed further. Nine was still moving, being far too fast for me to slow down entirely, however I now held the advantage, being able to move at a normal speed within the slowed world.
A fist flew past my head as I ducked to the left, contrary to how it's typically portrayed, I was not actually making the world slower. Instead I sped up my own relative "clock" compared to the rest of existence.
Because of this, I didn't hit any harder, and others didn't hit any softer. So a punch from Nine would still end the fight in a single blow.
My right arm threw a hook, too fast for Nine to avoid, into the side of her head. While I may still be relatively human, my right arm is fully cybernetic, meaning it can hit dozens of times harder than my organic arm would be capable of. Once time resumed its normal pace, Nine was in the air faster than I could blink, flying through a massive boulder in front of me, shattering it upon impact.
Truth be told, I'm not sure what Nine is, she looks humanoid, has no extra appendages, and doesn't have any real defining abilities, just brute strength, a wealth of combat knowledge, and magic.
As if to prove a point, a sudden beam of pure lightning burned through the air above me as I ducked, vaporizing the tops of trees behind me. Nine floated back over, held up by some flight magic. A flame began to form in one of her hands, and two floating orbs of light began to target me with small lasers.
"Oh fuck." I prepared myself for the incoming headache as I slowed time to a crawl once again, throwing all twelve daggers in her direction, I leapt over a fallen tree.
The problem with my power is that I can't use it all that long. It takes intense concentration to slow time like I was right now, and while I can slow my perception of it to react faster with less effort, doing that doesn't give me the speed to dodge. Only by speeding my own body up could I compete with the speed of many other, more powerful creatures.
As time sped back up I heard a cry of pain from behind the tree, it seemed the daggers had worked, now I just needed to figure out how to end this. I only had the cleaver sword, knife, and arming sword left, which meant I'd have to get close.
A stream of fire burned over my head, incinerating a tree, but failing to hit me.
"Come out Eleven, you can't hide forever you know…, If you don't I might just have to burn everything until I find you." She did not sound happy, and I didn't want to take a chance with that magic of hers. Finalizing my plan, I sighed and prayed that it would be dumb enough to work.
Unsheathing my knife, I lobbed it into the air after speeding myself up, pulling out my cleaver sword. I got behind a large boulder next to the fallen tree. As the knife fell I readied myself, raising the blade over my right shoulder.
With a *THUNK* my knife hit a piece of wood on the other side of Nine. She spun, already raising both hands to release a torrent of scorching fire, both light orbs lighting up to release blasts of energy as well.
As she did so I leapt, time slowed to a crawl, my head felt like it was splitting open, unfortunately I didn't make it all the way before I had to let go. Nine spun back around to face me, swearing as she did, a blast of fire and light hitting me right as my sword bit into her shoulder.
I hit the ground hard, landing on my side as I flipped from the force of her counterattack. Dimly I could make out a figure falling down beside me, Nine laughed and said something I couldn't hear.
Unconsciousness hit finally.
I woke up later in my ship's quarters, all of my clothing still on, and Nine was passed out on a chair in the corner, splayed out on it like a ragdoll.
She'd brought me here then, damn. I wasn't the best fighter of the agents, I would be the first to admit that. And Nine had many years of experience on my, but the loss still left a bad taste in my mouth.
I sighed, might as well check that data packet on M-198 that Fate sent us, from what I could tell we were already on our way there. Sitting down in the pilot seat, I accessed the information on M-198, the file was quite large, I'd just look at the basics.
Oh… well, this was going to be an interesting few months.
Author's Note
Hello everyone, and welcome to Timewalker.
So, this probably doesn't seem like the typical format for MGQ stories. I swear it's always SIs, not that I have anything against those of course. This story is a bit different. Though if you were expecting us to be with Luka then you'd be mistaken, mostly. This is set during his journey, but we'll be following these two as they hunt down this mysterious target, more on that next chapter.
Truthfully, this story could be written in MANY different fandoms, I simply happen to enjoy the setting that MGQ provides. The overarching multiverse will be more thoroughly explained and explored during the story, but it is something I've had in mind for years now. This is also "technically" a crossover, due to the multiverse aspect of it, this will rarely be relevant however.
If you want, go ahead and leave some feedback or criticism in the comments.