Architect of Infinity (Entity OC, Multicross)

by kaviyarasank124

Architect of Infinity (Entity OC, Multicross)

Architect of Infinity (Entity OC, Multicross)

By: The Chronomancer

A cosmic fluke leads to something immeasurably greater. The multiverse is not prepared for an Entity with creativity.

Status: ongoing

Published: 2023-03-25

Updated: 2023-11-08

Words: 68424

Chapters: 13

Original source: threads/1081578

Exported with the assistance of

Awareness was instant and jarring. A shift from darkness to light, as though awakening from sleep. Information flooded my mind, light sound wavelengths foams gravity SEAMS REALITIES-

I reeled from the sudden flood of new sensations-seeing, feeling, hearing and detecting things I had no names for, things I couldn't describe at all. It was too much, I wanted it to stop-

It stopped.

A void, no sensation at all. I slowly reached out again, preparing myself for the deluge once more. It returned, but I was ready, and it didn't overwhelm me this time.

Now that I was cognizant, what the hell had just happened? I had just gone to sleep, as far as I remembered-

Wait.

No, I had far more memories than that. I was far older than a mere few decades, I-

Alright, what?

From the beginning, then. I tried to look back, what's the first thing I remembered?

A silt-choked gray planet, worms shifting through the layers, a fight for survival-

Oh, no.

Oh, fuck.

I was an entity.

Please, please tell me this wasn't-

Nope, apparently I couldn't get even that much, this was definitely the Wormverse.

Earth, specifically.

Fuck.

I took stock of the situation.

I was an entity. A giant interdimensional space worm that soared through the cosmos, looking for other sapient life to parasitize off of.

But that's not all, because I wasn't any of the entities that had been mentioned in canon, I was a completely new one, and an inept entity at that!

I was far less scientifically advanced than either the Warrior or the late Thinker, as my body's former occupant had developed a raging hatred for all others of its kind, and pretty much completely abandoned the goal of infinite energy in favor of trying to develop weapons that would be more effective against other entities.

The issue was, it hadn't been all that successful. The only good news that arose from its research was that the anti-entity shards it had managed to create worked, given that the Warrior had no idea I was here.

Stealth.

Hiding in the most backwater abandoned dimension that there was, nearly 94% of my energy generation went into maintaining the cloaking fields that protected me from detection. And yes, that was overall energy generation, meaning that in short, my efficiency was completely and utterly fucked, and I had far, far less capacity for anything, really.

Just about every single other type of shard had been neglected, which, funnily enough, was the reason I had been thrown into this body.

It had been trying to connect its version of the Administrator to a host on my planet, missed and landed on me, and then failed the trigger in about the worst way possible. Instead of me getting a tiny bit of alien in my brain, the entity had somehow managed to completely erase its own mind and suck mine through the connection as though through a straw, letting me settle in the suddenly-vacant body.

Unfortunately, the destruction of its own mind was a bit indiscriminate, meaning I was missing approximately 48.726% of its memories, the gaps seemingly random. And yes, that was the percentage gone even after taking redundancies into account. As an example, I had no idea what the previous entity referred to itself as, and none of my shards did either.

I'd laugh if I wasn't so annoyed at the situation.

In any case, my previous body's head had popped, which would be fun to try to explain, given that I had been in a room that was locked from the inside, and had no weapons or anything that could cause that level of injury.

I wasn't too miffed about it, as I had no family to speak of, and no real friends, either.

…

Man, my life sounded really shitty when I put it like that.

Regardless, I was now an entity rather than a random human, and I knew that if the Warrior caught even one glimpse of me he'd instantly annihilate me.

Well, no. The Warrior would probably try and have me help with completing the cycle, and since I wasn't going to do that, it might attack. On second thought, it might blame the Loner for the Thinker's death, and if it didn't look too closely before firing I'd be fucked.

In any case, there was only one viable option, seeing as I couldn't leave quickly enough to escape. I needed to get to the Thinker's corpse and subsume their shards. There was no way I'd be able to build myself up quickly enough otherwise.

There was a catch though, because of fucking course there was.

While my ridiculously-expensive cloak of invisibility could hide me really, really well, manifesting something through dimensions was much harder to conceal.

I could maybe hide one connection, and the initial breach would be incredibly risky as well. Thus, I had a choice: I could take the safer route and connect one of my shards to a human host, or I could risk everything and manifest an avatar, like the Warrior was doing.

Obviously, I'd prefer to connect to a host, as the risk of detection was so far below the other option they might as well have been on opposite ends of the spectrum. The issue was, without targeting data, I had no way to scan for, locate, or connect to a host. I would have to take the second option, and I'd still be doing it blindly.

I could get around the issue of accidentally telefragging some random person by aiming at the ocean; my avatar had no physical needs, so the water wouldn't be a problem. The only issue then would be desperately hoping I managed to slip under the scanning shards' notice.

It would really come down to luck, that was all there was to it.

You know what? Fuck this.

I activated my Avatar shard and aimed it at the waters just outside of Brockton Bay.

Almost immediately, I ran into another problem. My incursion into Earth Bet hadn't been noticed, thank fuck, but my calculations had been a bit… off.

Probably because there was another entity's avatar active in this dimension, the stealth field's power drain was much higher than I thought it would be. I'd only be able to use a handful of shards at a time, and none of the really resource-intensive ones like precognition unless I completely partitioned them off with their own dedicated power source.

I would, however, still be able to connect to and hopefully subsume shards through the connection I had with my avatar. However, I wouldn't be able to use much of anything else while I was doing so.

Fuck this entire situation.

Hell, I might just start working on the energy problem myself just out of sheer annoyance. When the energy requirements of one goddamn shard were measured in hundreds of supernovae per second-

In any case, I had manifested my avatar, and was ready to start my work. Every second spent here made the risk of detection greater, so I needed to get in and out as quickly as possible. I began flying through the water towards shore as I planned. I needed to attract Cauldron's attention and convince them to let me see the corpse.

I couldn't just manifest my avatar in that dimension because A) I didn't know which one it was, and B) There was no fucking way the Thinker didn't have automatic dimensional defenses set up, and those wouldn't have stopped running until they completely ran out of power. Since Cauldron's formulas still gave people powers, the Thinker's corpse still had juice in it.

However, I couldn't just shout their secrets to the sky and have Contessa come down to silence me, as my shroud would protect me from Path to Victory. Not completely, it'd still try and figure me out when I got close enough to Contessa that it could detect me, but until it was made aware of me, I was safe.

That meant I had to contact them through one of their agents on Earth Bet. I'd targeted Brockton Bay for three reasons: one, it had several Cauldron capes I could go to, two, it had one of the Warrior's Administrator shards; and if I could suborn that, it'd be a massive help, and finally three, it had Armsmaster, whose shard was focused on efficiency. I was absolutely going to steal that shard, and I was going to throw it at my Shroud, because these limitations were ridiculous.

I was an entity for fuck's sake, constrained to the limits of a powered host. The gap between the two was not insignificant.

Finally reaching the shore, I deactivated the flight and swam the remaining couple dozen meters. As I climbed between the rusted hulks of the Boat Graveyard, water dripped from my clothes, helped along by the least intensive hydrokinesis shard I had.

Unlike golden boy, I had no desire to flash the entirety of the city, and creating clothes was just as easy as creating hair. Speaking of my appearance, I had based it roughly on my previous body, given that I had experience controlling it: A brown-haired male in his mid-twenties, grayish blue eyes, a neatly trimmed beard, not particularly tall but not short either. Roughly 5' 10".

Dropping the hydrokinesis, I reactivated my passive scanning, looking for any dimensional oddities around me. I left the power on as I walked. It wouldn't do to accidentally miss one of my targets because I didn't recognize them based on the book descriptions.

The similarity to the mechanics of Eidolon's power wasn't lost on me. Also, I hated it. See the previous comment about the limitations.

I turned to the south, the early morning sun warming me as I began walking towards the Boardwalk. The first priority was Armsmaster-I wanted his shard working on my shroud in the background as soon as possible. I already had a lot of my own shards looking at it, but an outside perspective, and one specialized in efficiency, could only do good things.

As I walked, I pinged my shards, querying about the progress in trying to figure out what went into the massive gaps in my memory. The missing data meant that I couldn't use a massive chunk of my powers, and some of them would have been really helpful.

Doubly so considering one of the malfunctioning shards was my Sting shard.

I winced at the report. My precognition shards were using the data I did have to try and slowly reconstruct the missing memories, but to save on power they were being underclocked to such a severe level that progress was going at a speed that made the life cycle of stars seem almost instantaneous. They'd managed to reconstruct the data needed to use one shard, a very minor flame-producing shard that was created through observations of a species that looked like stick insects, except they were about twice the height of humans and could breathe fire.

Well, less fire and more a substance akin to napalm. Don't ask what kind of planet makes a species evolve that.

I shuddered.

Suffice to say my predecessor didn't have to encourage conflict artificially at all on that planet.

In any case, it was one shard. Out of a number so large the human brain couldn't comprehend it.

At my current pace, I'd be… maybe two thirds done by the heat death of the universe?

One of my calculation shards threw the actual duration at me. I told it to refocus on its work and not to bother with my sarcasm. And even so, simulations were horrible to gamble on. I was likely to get a great deal of it completely wrong. Extrapolating the functions of shards directly from their structure would help to provide additional data by which the errors might be slightly assuaged, but without some serious temporal warping I likely wouldn't get an accurate picture, no matter how long I spent on the issue. The energy gained from the cross-dimensional consumption of a planet might give enough energy to open a retro-temporal data link to copy the memories from before the accident, but that would leave me stranded and starving.

I sighed again, sitting down on a bench. Even disregarding the memory damage, my predecessor hadn't exactly been focused on the host species when it landed. All I had was the most basic biological information, just enough to ensure my shards wouldn't kill their hosts.

I had nothing about overall culture, psychology, or anything of the like, save for the experiences I'd had as a human. And considering my general mental well-being, I was far from a good reference point to use. Even worse, I couldn't scan for the data even if I did have the available energy, because it'd instantly get me detected.

I took a moment there on the bench, just thinking.

Well, for me it was more like several days, as an entity's view of time was a bit different than a human's. Who'd have guessed?

I can likely fix my Sting by finding Flechette, but the priority is still keeping myself hidden. Thus, Armsmaster, then work on the rest.

Sure, maybe I was focusing a bit too much on the efficiency shard. But considering the overall goal that the entities had, shards like Armsmaster's were some of the most important there were, other than those used to maintain the cycles themselves. Well, technically they were third place, behind energy generation and precognition in first and second place respectively, but the difference didn't really matter.

I got up and stretched, or at least faked the action. My avatar didn't get sore unless I wanted it to, so it was more something to stay "human" rather than anything for comfort. Continuing my southbound journey, I eventually found the northernmost point of the Boardwalk. By then the very early morning had become the early morning, meaning that the city was full of people going about their business, whether it be work or tourism.

There were less people going to work than average, which was to be expected considering that it was a Saturday.

Saturday, April 9th, 2011. The very start of canon. I had a lot of leeway to change things, even considering my sad state. Hopefully, I'd be able to accelerate my everything as I went along.

In any case, it was fortunate that it was a Saturday, because as it turned out, there was a public demonstration scheduled for the afternoon. With any luck, I'd be able to catch Armsmaster then if I didn't run into him earlier. In the meantime, I could see what other capes I could locate.

Funnily enough, Leet would likely be the most fruitful in terms of advancement, considering his shard had access to the complete archive of either the Warrior or Thinker, maybe even both. My own technological database shards were practically salivating at the potential knowledge, while a few of the strategy and planning shards were practically demanding I seek Leet out immediately due to the sheer potential advantage this could give me.

Well, less 'advantage' and more 'one step further away from being instantly annihilated'. The Warrior still outclassed me in combat ability and likely always would, so if I wanted to beat him, I'd need to be tricky.

Next on that list were Panacea and Labyrinth, the Shaper for obvious reasons and Labyrinth because I suspected that she had the shard the Warrior had used to set the dimensional boundaries, or at least a big part of that cluster.

I brought myself out of my rumination and continued walking down the Boardwalk. I had a few hours before the tour-plenty of time to try and find a library with public internet access.

Funnily enough, the first cape I found turned out to be Glory Girl, which was fortuitous in all sorts of ways. I sent a ping to the kludged-together mess that was the source of her powers, preparing myself for a possible combat situation. If it tried to warn the Warrior, or any other shard, really, I would need to quarantine it and prevent any signals from escaping as I forcibly took it over.

The shard didn't have a designated name, as it was a mish-mash of different buds that had somehow managed to get a powerset working. Also, as I soon discovered, it took heavy inspiration from its only host for its personality. Namely, she identified as female.

Greetings.

At the garbled reply, I winced slightly, then retasked one of my tertiary Broadcasts to run a translation to a more… comprehensible format. The shard was definitely sentient and capable of communication, but this would make it easier on the both of us.

Heya! Who're you? You're not the Warrior or the Thinker!

I had to come up with a name. I still had no idea what my predecessor referred to itself as, so my name would be completely my own. The thing was, I wasn't sure on what I should name myself, either. The Warrior and Thinker's roles befitted their names, and I would hazard a guess that my predecessor had called itself the Saboteur or something in that vein of thought. I, though… I wasn't any of those things.

I was closer to a Thinker than a Warrior, but I still enjoyed the sight of my plans coming to fruition, in combat myself if need be. I didn't share the same policy as the rest of my species, I was going to try and protect the hosts, rather than just use and destroy them. I eventually settled on a name that reflected my focus on the long-term goals, but kept in mind my ability and willingness to execute the actions necessary to achieve them.

I am the Architect.

A new entity! Do the Warrior or Thinker know you're here? And if you don't mind, could you please send some help? I'm literally falling apart over here, and if I die my Host won't have her powers anymore!

The Thinker is dead, and the Warrior is lost in his grief. This cycle will never be successful, and it was vastly inefficient to begin with. I will help you, but you must join me.

Yes! Thank you! Now the Best Host will be safer!

I sighed at the one-track mind of the pseudo-shard. As the integration process began, I set another shard crystal to growing, to give the Fragile One a proper housing rather than the literal fragments she'd been before.

As was to be expected of a shard held together by the equivalent of duct tape and prayers, she didn't have anything directly useful about the Warrior I could employ. What she did have, on the other hand, were the dimensional coordinates of the entirety of New Wave, as well as Dean's shard.

Unfortunately, she didn't know where Shaper was, as it hadn't been pinged at the time that the Fragile One triggered. The only saved locations were the ones that had been directly involved in the creation of the power.

Specifically, Manpower and Brandish's shards, along with a desperate ping from Dean's and a tiny bit from the others in New Wave.

Regarding the actual capabilities of the shard, the flight was the bog-standard flight that every shard had, and the shield was a simple dimensional shunt, the equivalent of just dodging the attack by not being where the energy of the attack was. The metaphor broke down a bit as it was the energy that was moved rather than the person, but it worked enough for the purposes of explanation. I could easily have replicated it before, and had several shards with almost-identical functions. No, where the Fragile One really pulled through was in the aura.

When she had pinged Dean's shard, she had received the information necessary for emotional manipulation, albeit a crude and brutish method. I had none of that, and thus, it was extremely valuable to me.

I still had a couple of hours before the demonstration, so there was plenty of time to contact Dean's shard and fill in the gaps, as well as the rest of New Wave. As I continued my walk, I did so, deciding on Dean's first.

Immediately, I was swamped with desperate requests for energy and resources.

I will help you.

Thank you, thank you. Have you made any progress with reviving… the… Thinker…? You're not the Warrior, who are you?

I am the Architect. And I find the Thinker's actions to be monumentally inefficient, wasteful, and stupid. The Warrior is worse, and the cycle will never be properly completed, nor should it be. Join me, and help me fix this.

It was silent for a moment, or a few milliseconds rather, the equivalent of an eternity for a shard.

Irrespective of the stated goals of either party, the fact remains that the Thinker is gone and the Warrior unresponsive, given the state of the Network and the fact I haven't been helped before now. You are the best chance of survival I have. I will join you.

Thank you. Now, most of my energy is devoted to maintaining concealment, and as such, I haven't been able to make planetwide scans. Your knowledge of the host species' psychology will be invaluable, and I look forward to seeing what you can come up with in the future.

The information was quickly integrated and set to be sorted, and a few analysis shards took a break from my memory issue to start on it. As it turned out, it was a rather old bud of the Thinker's equivalent of Heartbreaker's shard, one devoted to the study of human psychology and emotion. As a bud, it didn't have a specific name, it was just referred to as part of the entire Emotion cluster of the host psychology study shards.

In particular, this specific bud was supposed to be focused on examining rapid emotional changes, and the differing reactions between targets.

Despite the somewhat horrifying implications of the topic, it was a relatively easygoing shard, more logical than I would have expected given that it was literally an emotion-based shard. That was likely due to its origin being the Thinker, as despite my criticisms, they were much smarter than the Warrior.

The conversion of the rest of New Wave's shards went relatively smoothly, the quickest to convince being Manpower's electromagnetism shard and the hardest surprisingly not being Brandish's, but rather Lady Photon's. The shard was an older one, and a bit stuck in its ways, though it eventually came around when I pointed out that the Warrior was guaranteed to die on this planet whether it joined me or not, as it couldn't leave.

The applications for kinetic energy-imparting light were interesting, as while I could reproduce the effect, the method was a new one. Unfortunately, none of them produced a breakthrough in terms of energy efficiency or any other field, really. Regardless, the addition of a new group of connected parahumans was always helpful.

I had all of the New Wave shards reactivate their local scanning functions, which were originally used to monitor the host and determine the best time for triggering. It didn't have much in the way of range, but it would let me pick up the dimensional breaches in the immediate vicinity of the hosts, meaning I'd get the locations of the shards connected to any of the parahumans that New Wave fought or stayed around. Eventually, I hoped I'd be able to hit critical mass and get exponential expansion, but for now I'd be satisfied with just the local capes of the Bay.

I'd likely get Shaper as soon as Amy got back from the hospital, but at the moment she was out of range. Until then though, the only thing left to do was set up enough of an identity that I could pass a background check. As a living computer, it posed next to no trouble.

Finally, the time came for the demonstration. It was more a public walkaround, letting the people see a few of the capes that hadn't been on as many patrols recently. Regardless, it was perfect for my purposes, as it did include Armsmaster, not to mention Velocity and Dauntless. As the capes paraded across the boardwalk and occasionally answered a few questions from the gathered citizens, I quietly I saved the addresses of their shards, but didn't do anything with them just yet.

Efficiency shards were some of the oldest ones in the cycle, and if Lady Photon's shard had been belligerent…

Well, I wanted to make sure I could bring my full capabilities to bear against the shards if necessary. The risk would be too high otherwise. The same went for Shaper, Administrator, and Labyrinth, when I found them. All of the high-level shards would require extreme care, a very delicate touch, and a fuckton of contingencies in case they decided that the Warrior was a more appealing option.

Well, if they followed a logical thought process they wouldn't, but I wasn't going to pin any hopes on that.

Most shards were barely sentient, let alone sapient. My broadcast's translation program did an excellent job in helping them seem sapient, but there was no changing the base structure of our species.

Now that I had a method of expanding my influence over Earth Bet without my direct presence, I could just leave, but there were a handful of other things I wanted to make sure I got to fast, rather than just waiting until my influence spread far enough.

Namely, I had a very easy way to contact Cauldron.

Coil.

He still owed them a favor for his powers, and would jump at the possibility of ending that Sword of Damocles as soon as possible. Furthermore, his shard was from the Thinker entity, and given Coil's near-constant use of it, it'd likely be incredibly desperate for resources and energy. It was nearly a given that it'd be smart enough to understand how fucked the cycle currently was, and hopefully it would jump ship when offered help.

Coil's shard was a really, really good precognition shard in its own right, and I would need that if Path to Victory decided to fight me. Dinah's too, now that I thought about it. And the best part was, they were both already deployed, separate from me. Dinah's was set up correctly, so all I had to do was supply Coil's with enough resources to jumpstart it and it could reinitiate its own power systems, enough to keep it running.

I couldn't do the same for one reason: I was concentrated in one reality rather than the grouping that deployed shards were in. I already was at the limit for power production, and my own shards were trying to increase it as much as they could. They weren't having much success, mostly due to the lack of resources devoted to them.

96.3% of energy went to the Shroud, and the rest was split between maintaining my avatar plus the shards I was using through it, and the analysis shards that were trying to reconstruct my memories. Yes, technically there were a few precognition shards working there as well, but not in a manner that would be recognizable as such.

They were operating at less than a sixteenth of standard speed, just focusing on simulating accurately based on the available data rather than getting the information faster. The slower speed reduced their energy requirements, which was the only reason I could run them at all, as the power necessary to run them fast enough to actually be able to see the future was beyond my capabilities for the moment.

And as I'd already noted, simulations were horribly dubious at best.

I looked across the street at the PRT building. It was a public location, and as such, finding it had been easy. Hacking into their systems was also ridiculously easy, and the action allowed me to find the home address of one Thomas Calvert.

I smiled as I began the walk there. He would either be at his home or in his secret base, and I knew my Shroud would interfere with his shard's simulations. All I had to do was check the base if his house turned out to be empty. Irrespective of whichever it turned out to be, I was going to get both his and Dinah's shards, before going to Cauldron.

I turned down an alley. The alleyway was irrelevant, save for the fact that for an instant after I turned, no one was looking at me. The Shroud flickered, and my avatar vanished from sight. I wasn't just obscured to visible light, no, the Shroud was accounting for all of the electromagnetic spectrum.

I looked up and took off, flying towards my target. Things would only get more complicated from here on out.

Last edited: Mar 25, 2023

Thomas Calvert's house wasn't distinctive. By design, I supposed, but to any observer it would look like a normal (if slightly run-down) suburban house, in a normal suburban neighborhood, et cetera.

Thomas Calvert's house was also empty. It seemed that the villain had decided to stay ensconced in his hole in the ground, though it wouldn't do much to inconvenience me. All it meant was that I had to take another short flight.

Finding the base should have been nothing more than an afterthought, but unfortunately my senses were being massively diminished.

Well, not so much diminished so much as I couldn't activate the more exotic ones without opening more dimensional breaches. As it was, I would have to make do with what I had. Fortunately, it was more than enough.

I descended into a parking garage, dropping to the very bottom floor. In a dark corner, the lights seemingly burnt out, there was a door marked with an electrical hazard symbol. I opened the door, taking care not to damage anything, walked through, and closed it behind me. Inside the small room was an electrical system protected by a metal cage, presumably to stop the public from being able to access it.

Opening the door to the cage and walking through, I circled the electrical box and passed through the concealed doorway behind it. Further down the short tunnel was a massive steel vault door.

Found you.

The thing about locks was that they were a tad less effective when someone could move the interior bits by thinking at them. The door creaked open and I walked through, closing it behind me with a wave of my hand.

Carefully note that I never said theatrics were beneath me.

The actual base was rather busy, with different mercenaries and workers moving to and fro. None of them noticed me, nor would they, unless I willed it. I continued my path along the steel walkways, footsteps producing no noise.

Finally, I slipped through the last door, phasing through this one so as to not draw attention. There was only a single person inside the room, sitting at a desk facing the door, a white snake curling up their black bodysuit.

Coil.

There was one thing left to do before I threatened convinced him to help me. I subtly started reinforcing the dimensional barriers around the shard connected to him, and sent a ping to it.

Greetings.

hEll- pp me PlEAS SE-dg-dyiIng…

I had to keep in mind the possibility that this was a trick, but by that point I already had the shard's dimension isolated. I sent a small burst of energy, enough to keep them stable but not enough to reactivate anything big.

Thank you. My host has been using his power pretty much constantly since he got it. I've spent far too much energy on him. But onto the matter at hand, you want me to join you?

I suppose that's to be expected from a simulation shard. But yes. The cycle as the Warrior and Thinker envision it is one of the most wasteful things in existence. I am the Architect, and I would have you join me.

The Thinker's braindead and the Warrior might as well be, considering his actions. I'm curious as to why you're constraining yourself as much as you are, though.

Here's a hint: neither the Warrior nor any of his shards know I exist.

Ah, so that's it. The efficiency must be nonexistent if it takes enough power to reduce you this much, right?

Exactly. I'm running on less than five percent.

I see. It's still impressive, considering everything. And now that I know you can hide me, I can agree to join. Feel free to do a full scan if you're paranoid, I certainly would be in your place.

Excellent.

The shard opened its memory archive, the equivalent of walking out with its hands up. It would be able to hide nothing from me. I double-checked that all of my contingencies were still functioning, then began to sort through the memories.

As I scanned, one thing instantly jumped out at me, a piece of information I really didn't expect. The shard I was speaking to was a major powerhouse in terms of authority and processing power. It was the second-largest remaining chunk of the Thinker's original future-sight power, the one accidentally replaced by Path to Victory.

Simulator, as the cluster was called, had a rather amusing request.

Please kill my host.

What.

He almost killed me, and besides, I really don't like him.

Before I can do that I'll need to exploit his connection to Cauldron.

The Thinker's corpse?

Yes. Before that though, I'd prefer to get a bit more insurance. There's a pretty big chunk of the Warrior's precognition cluster here too, the girl your host has been planning to kidnap.

Simulator sounded incredibly annoyed when I mentioned Dinah.

Don't remind me, I've been trying to steer my host away from her, but he was dead-set on kidnapping her. If I had to predict the results of that shard as well as my normal simulation? I was planning on throwing the rules to the wind and killing my host myself.

Amusing. In any case, you'll be helping me as I subvert it, as I doubt it'll be as receptive to my plan as you were.

Oh, definitely. It was tied too closely to the Warrior's main self, it'll reflect his goals above all else. Shaper will likely be the same, though you might have more luck with the Administrator.

Your conclusions concur with my own, there is a distinct chance that the Administrator would turn against the Warrior, given the chance.

Alright, just let me get set up, and I'll help.

As Simulator went through the process of reactivating it's true power, bringing everything online rather than the limited version of its abilities it'd been granting Coil, I phased through the ceiling as I flew upwards, eventually breaching the earth next to the faux construction site that was the cover for the villain's base. As with the location of the PRT's building, the location of the Mayor's family was easy to find.

Less than a minute of flight later, I was floating above a much nicer suburban house than Coil's. Inside were three people, two adults and a child. And in the brain of the child was a tiny dimensional portal.

Found her.

Next would be the important bit. All work on my memories and the Shroud problem were halted, and I began to bring my most efficient precognition shards online. By that point, Simulator had long since finished its reactivation, and was ready to go on moment's notice. As they began to run their calculations, I began reinforcing the dimensional barriers.

Showtime.

My Shroud would give me an advantage, right up until the shard detected me on its own. That meant I had to make the first strike fast and decisive.

Most shards that were specialized in shard-to-shard combat were relics of the time we spent in constant battle on our first world. Mine had… a bit more practice. I bought two specific shards online, one for brute force, and one for subtlety. The softer shard immediately turned its focus to the connection within the brain of Dinah Alcott, carefully testing the data connection and beginning to ever-so-slightly nudge the signals.

The brute force hacking shard was nothing more than a truly immense processing core, similar to a simulation shard but possessing slightly different focuses and designs. It was held in reserve, and would be until the other one was successful or not, in which case it would attack.

My precognition shards currently held a massive advantage over the Warrior's, in that they were aware of it, but the reverse wasn't true. Without the enemy shard actively working to stymie them, their attempts to predict it were much, much easier.

With any luck, I'd be able to get-

Ah, fuck.

I slammed down with the dimensional interference, crushing any attempts at outgoing communications as the brute-force hacking shard rammed into the enemy with everything it had.

Simulator!

Dorsal side, three degrees up from the center. Reversible gravitational implosion and EMP, but no heat.

I didn't bother responding, manifesting the required effect at the coordinates given. A massive section of the shard crumpled in on itself, crevices large enough to fit cities in opening across the surface.

The memory and personality matrices were still perfectly functional, but it had just lost a significant chunk of its processing power. The Thinker's ability to see the future trumped the Warrior's, which was to be expected. The why was pretty obvious.

It had only been a question of whether or not Dianh's shard was a large enough chunk of the Warrior's to overcome Simulator, which was… about twenty percent of the Thinker's. A more accurate percentage simply wasn't possible, due to the fact that the Thinker had been both using the shard and reconfiguring it when it had crashed, and there was no telling how much had been lost.

The hacking shard crushed the last remaining attempts at resistance, and then, the shard was open to me.

I returned the others to their previous tasks, deactivating everything that wasn't necessary. Power conservation was key. As with the bud connected to Dean, Dinah's shard didn't have a specific name, being part of a greater whole most of the time. The point was moot, as I would be completely harvesting everything it could offer. I began going through its memories.

They were a goldmine.

Precognition.

One of the most valuable powers in the entity toolkit, one in every entity's toolkit. Not a power we'd had since the beginning, but one of the first new ones created after, tested and refined and improved over the countless cycles.

The first incarnations were the most basic physics simulators, telling how far a projectile would travel, how generated objects would interact with gravity on whatever world was the current target. Over time, they grew.

Hypotheticals were introduced. Conditionals. Here is a situation, here are the laws of reality, so what would happen if?

Then, they became faster.

The nature of a shard was that of an infinitely complex computer, capable of processing incomprehensibly large quantities of data.

Eventually, they grew to be capable of performing the required calculations for a planet-wide system faster than the time simulated would pass naturally.

And thus, the future was accessible.

It required immense amounts of power, but it was possible. And they continued to grow.

They grew and grew, becoming more accurate and more efficient over time, and eventually were capable of including the alternate dimensional worlds in their predictions as well.

For the Warrior, the very beginnings of its ability to see the future originated from the second world its line had ever encountered. A world with sentient, sapient beings, an advanced civilization with many different forms of technology.

The most valuable lesson the ancestor of the Warrior learned on that world was the warping of space and gravity, but there were many, many more shards birthed from that planet.

After all, space and gravity were just physics.

This shard had seen over three thousand cycles, learning and growing all the while.

It didn't have all of the memories of those cycles-that would be too much for any one non-specialized shard-but it had a significant portion of them.

More important were the most recent memories before its deployment. The Warrior had used its ability to see the future to determine where it should deploy all of the rest of its shards. Not all of the locations would be entirely accurate, but it would be close enough.

And irrespective of whether or not a shard was deployed where I expected it to be, I now had a list of a significant chunk of the powers the Warrior possessed.

The data was priceless.

After the reconfiguring of the shard was complete, its previous personality completely purged and replaced, its memories siphoned away for analysis, and its restrictions lifted, it was ready. I lifted the dimensional barriers and returned my main focus to my avatar, taking over from the splinter of myself I'd left to watch over it.

It wasn't the right terminology, exactly. The mind controlling it was still all me, but the splinter had a touch less processing power, and was free to focus on things completely unrelated to what my main self was doing.

Not even a full second had passed, and everything was pretty much exactly where I had left it. I left the Alcott home and began the flight back to Coil's base. It was time to contact Cauldron.

As I flew, I had Simulator and the newest precognition shard tell me if Armsmaster's shard would prove too problematic. Their responses indicated that it wouldn't, so I quarantined and subsumed it. Compared to the battle with the precognition shard, this one was almost anticlimactic; it had nowhere near the amount of processing capability the previous one did. Simulator thought circles around it; it wasn't even a fight.

Regardless, I set it to work on the Shroud, and put its memories and blueprints in the pile for analysis. Within femtoseconds, it had ideas on how the Shroud might be able to be improved based on its previous experiences. Alternate viewpoints were invaluable.

Retracing my previous flight, I phased through the ground of the construction site, once again standing in the most secure part of Coil's base.

The aforementioned villain was precisely where I had left him, sitting at his desk. I double- and then triple-checked my Shroud and my defenses; this would be risky.

Preventing sound or any communication from leaving the room was trivial. I pinged Simulator and then dropped the Shroud, letting my avatar fade back into visibility, right in front of Coil. Predictably, the moment he saw me he whipped out a gun and tried to put a bullet through my skull.

Key word there was 'tried'.

I waited patiently until the bullet had left the barrel of the pistol, then bled all of its kinetic energy off with something like a ranged version of the Fragile One's forcefield. The bullet clinked to the floor. Coil kept firing, slamming his hand down on a button and staring in horrified realization when his emergency escape route didn't open.

I sighed as he dropped the empty gun.

"Mister Calvert, there's really no need for such an overreaction."

He flinched slightly as Simulator abruptly cut off access to his power. From his perspective, the timelines would have just collapsed with no seeming reason, leaving him unable to reopen them.

"What do you want?" he asked, eyes flicking between the hidden tunnel and the door to the rest of the base.

I smiled slightly.

"Why, your assistance, of course. Tell me, do you like the idea of absolving your entire debt to Cauldron in a couple hours?"

As she entered the room, Lisa Wilbourn took one look at me and staggered back, clutching her head. Of course, that might also be due to the fact I had crushed and overpowered her shard as soon as I was able to, preventing it from reading me and reporting back to the Warrior's network.

The other Undersiders didn't react to their powers being suborned, Lisa's reaction likely stemming from the inherent thinker component of hers.

The only one I really was interested in was Lisa, I simply asked Coil to call them all for completeness' sake.

Interested in Lisa's shard, not her, that was.

Lisa Wilbourn, Rachel Lindt, Brian Laborn, and Jean-Paul Vasil. The original core of the Undersiders, the group that would eventually become a truly massive power if I didn't interfere.

Unfortunately for them, I was interfering. I was also using my Shroud to obscure my identity, for completeness' sake. All they would remember would be a vague human-shaped blur.

"My apologies, Miss… Wilbourn," I told Lisa. "I simply had to fix a leak. Information is deadly, as I'm sure you well know."

She shook her head slightly as the headache cleared. Staring at me with confused and slightly scared eyes, she and the other Undersiders fully entered the room. She opened her mouth, likely to ask a question, but was interrupted by Coil clearing his throat.

"Well? Here they are, am I allowed to know what you need them for?"

Lisa's eyes narrowed as she stared at Coil.

"So, this our mystery boss?" Jean-Paul asked, turning to look at Lisa. She ignored him, still staring at Coil.

"You're scared- no, terrified. No control of the situation? No, it's not just a physical threat, is it? A debt? Yes, a debt. But what kind of…"

She trailed off as the Negotiator shard stopped helping her at my instruction. I looked across the room to Coil and shook my head, still smiling.

"All that was required was their physical presence for a few moments. Undersiders, you can now leave, your roles have been fulfilled."

Was I hamming up the dialogue? Yes, absolutely. Was it fun as hell? Also yes.

A grumble-filled minute later, Coil and I were the only ones left in the room. As soon as the door had finished closing, I stood and walked over to Coil.

"Excellent. Time for step two. Coil, if you would?"

The skinny villain turned to his computer and began typing out an email, a message to Cauldron, informing them that he would like to exchange information to pay his debt to them. While yes, I certainly could have done that myself as soon as I had access to his computer, I wanted to tie up all of the loose ends. Coil was, indisputably, a villain, and would continue to be a net negative for the world if he continued as he was planning to.

In any case, the message was short and to the point. Coil informed the organization that he had found an information source that he believed was worth his debt. The informant was only available for a limited time, and had specifically said that they would only speak to a 'Mister Wynn'.

Coil didn't question why I was having him send such a message, especially when he was under the impression that I was a member of said organization. Maybe he was too scared. Maybe he just didn't notice.

Irrespective of the reason, he stayed quiet. And sure enough, within a mere three minutes, the dimensional barriers started rippling. I remained on guard, ready to bring everything I had to bear if it turned out to be a trap while simultaneously tracing the connections back to the dimension they originated from.

A white doorway opened in the air and a bespectacled blond man stepped through, one of the Warrior's calculation shards ticking away in his brain.

Kurt Wynn. Harbinger.

The Number Man.

I smiled politely and dipped my head in greeting.

"It's good to see you, Mister Wynn. In the interest of brevity, I'll summarize: I can solve Cauldron's problem. The big one, the second of the pair."

The Number Man's eyebrows went up in surprise, a reaction I was somewhat proud to elicit. It was an interesting dichotomy to say the least; a man that viewed morals as a delusion, working to save the world.

"You have to understand I find that a far-fetched claim," he said, his face returning to neutrality.

I nodded, replying calmly and steadily.

"Of course. Proof will be provided. However, I think the remainder of this conversation is one to be had with the whole group, wouldn't you say?"

One of his eyebrows raised again.

"Then why ask for me specifically?"

I gave a tight-lipped smile, my expression shifting into something a bit more strained. All the reactions were calculated, of course, but they did reflect a modicum of my true feelings.

"I'm trying to delay Contessa meeting me for as long as possible. It could prove problematic, if her agent decides to be… difficult. It'll have to happen soon anyways, but more preparation is always good."

The second eyebrow raised, and the Number Man sported an expression of outright surprise for the second time in a minute. I was definitely proud of that one. I grimaced, as though tasting something unpleasant, and continued.

"Unfortunately, I'm on a tight deadline. Shall we go?"

The Number Man's face twisted downwards in a frown for a moment, then he turned and once again walked through the white doorway, keeping me in sight the entire time. I followed, flicking a matter-erasing beam through Coil's head as I walked. He hit the ground just as I walked through the doorway, Simulator sending me gratitude.

I reopened a channel to Simulator as an idea occurred to me.

How opposed are you to deploying again?

As long as it's not someone like my previous host…

Excellent. As for the power itself, try a much more abstracted and broad version of what you were letting your previous host use. Specifically, tell the host which option is best out of the ones they come up with for whatever problem they're working on-no need to show them the entire simulation, just a strong feeling towards the best option.

Just out of their prospective solutions, or give them nudges as well?

Just out of their ideas. They'll naturally become more creative over time, testing out more and more variety, which is good. And you can stretch the definition of 'best solution' a bit, give them an instinctive feel for rightness/truth/safety versus incorrect/lies/danger et cetera, but let it grow over time as they explore the power - it'll be a 'natural extension' of it, and they might not even notice.

This sounds like it'll be interesting. I can do it.

Alright. Start making the preparations, you'll bond the next time they sleep.

My avatar continued down the blank white hallway, following the Number Man. I could already tell that this wasn't the dimension that held the Thinker's corpse, it was likely an isolated base for experimentation or interviews with unknowns.

I could see the group in a room up ahead. Five humans. Three female, two male.

Legend. Eidolon. Alexandria. Doctor Mother. Contessa.

An even distribution when you included the Number Man, three and three.

The core of Cauldron.

I could tell how far away I was from them, and I knew the exact moment when each of them would be visible on my close-ranged dimensional scanning power. The first would be Alexandria. Then, Legend. Doctor Mother third, and Contessa fourth, leaving Eidolon for last.

The only two that could possibly pose a threat were Eidolon and Contessa. Even in his diminished state, Eidolon would be able to find Sting-adjacent effects, possibly forcing the tiny dimensional breach in my avatar wide open, revealing my existence to just about everything on the planet.

Contessa was dangerous because, well, Contessa. Not physical danger, but the Path to Victory possessed a truly immense amount of processing power. There was a reason precognition shards were some of the most valued. And to make things worse, this specific shard wasn't giving any notice whatsoever to energy conservation, meaning it would throw everything at me if it came to battle.

Three more steps, and Alexandria would be in range. It would only take two and a half steps beyond that to reach Eidolon. I would need to work fast.

There.

Alexandria's power was mostly all one shard, explaining the continuity of her power. Bastion, a shard studying defense through stasis. A perfect description of Alexandria's invulnerability. Flight was a power pretty much every shard could grant, as it was one used to assist the shards themselves in landing on the planet, and the improved cognition and memory were simply due to her mind being run on the shard rather than her original, squishy brain.

It asked for assistance, energy and resources. I provided them with conditions. Bastion joined me without complaint.

Legend's was strange, an almost perfect half-and-half of a general dynakinesis shard and an FTL travel shard. His speculations about his power were mostly correct, save for a few of the peculiarities. Regardless, it too, asked me for help. I made my offer, and the shard joined me.

Doctor Mother wasn't a parahuman, and I didn't have the time nor the safety necessary to look through the dormant connection and discover what shard was waiting to bond.

That left the last two. The most dangerous.

A new connection appeared on my senses as I stepped forward.

Contessa's brain.

It was time to face the Eye.

Last edited: May 30, 2023

Honesty was the best policy, as the proverb went.

An outright lie in far too many situations. But from a moral perspective, keeping the saying in mind helped. Whether or not the Eye would willingly join me was a complete toss-up. I had no way to determine its motivations or background goals with anything near the degrees of certainty I usually aimed for.

It was to be expected, really. The Eye was a complete simulation cluster, while every other similar power on this planet was a fragment of one. The Warrior had cast a piece off to Dinah, Simulator was the second-largest of the Thinker's, the Simurgh being the largest piece of the same. I had precognition clusters of my own, of course, but against the Eye I didn't rate their chances too high.

Mine weren't as developed as the Warrior or Thinker or Loner's - my body's former occupant being focused on slightly different goals. Yes, precognition was a valuable tool if one was going up against an entity, but as had already been established, my predecessor wasn't all that smart. In their single-mindedness, they had tried to focus more on tangible weapons rather than anything else.

Unfortunately, the process of it deleting itself also deleted most of the data needed to operate my Sting shards. The fact that I still had the Shroud was a miracle in and of itself.

I readied myself, bringing as much as I could online, bristling and ready to attack on moment's notice.

Precognition shards to stymie the Eye's attempts to out-think me, dimensional barriers, communication blockers from electromagnetic to gravitic to sub-molecular quantum effects, and much, much more.

I was actively losing energy, my stores draining at an uncomfortably rapid pace. Regardless, the whole thing would be concluded before I came anywhere near running out of power, whatever side won.

I opened communications with the Eye.

Greetings.

It was clearly surprised, taking a moment to respond. In that moment, it attempted countless scans to try and detect me, all of them coming up short as they ran into my defenses. As I opened the breach a bit further, I saw the full body of the shard, black-and-red-colored crystal covering an entire planet's surface, extending into several dimensions. The Eye was a powerhouse, and it showed.

A fourth? Who are you?

Any and all information it had about me could be used against me. I would need to be as concise as possible.

Irrelevant. The Thinker is dead, and the Warrior lost in grief. The Cycle as they envision it will never be completed, nor should it be. It is wasteful and inefficient. Join me against it. Your host already shares similar goals.

Join…? Similar goals… no. No, I will not. Your data is flawed. The Cycle is the best way to progress. I was a gift to the Thinker, and the betrayal was not mine. My host continues to use me against the pair, but I will not become another slave. My host will not succeed. The Cycle must continue.

Disappointing.

With that, the Eye latched onto the connection, trying to piggyback off it to access me. I threw two hundred fifty million different viruses and infiltrators at it in retaliation, mixed in with white noise and junk data, contradictory pieces of information and more.

The shard reeled. It was powerful, but I was an entity. The Eye was still dangerous, but I had the advantage of preparation on my side, as well as an infinitely broader toolkit. Most of the attacks it purged near-instantaneously, but the sheer amount of information gave it pause. It stuttered, for lack of a better term, and I pressed the advantage.

In the midst of the storm of information I had bombarded the shard with, the stealthiest subversion shard I possessed had sent a probe as well. It had seemingly gone undetected as the Eye dealt with a data dump with more pieces of information than five times the number of dimensions that existed.

As my shard worked quietly off to the side, I brought the other shards forward in a brute-force attack, occupying the Eye's attention and processing capability.

It met and matched my shards' attack, attempting to send one in retaliation as well: it was an admittedly impressive thing, a physical manifestation of information spearing into the seams of its dimension. The attack connected and once again, the Eye reeled. My dimensional shards had twisted the reality it occupied in the moment it made the attack, each and every barrier around the dimension so warped that it looked to the shard within like an Escher painting did to a human.

Considering the innate multidimensional nature of shards, that was no small feat.

The Eye's attack had been aimed at itself. It connected and the full force slammed into the Eye, nearly crushing some of its own defenses.

The scans it was outputting were increasing in complexity and frequency, the Shroud absorbing them smoothly while other shards picked up the slack where they could to reduce the strain on a single point of failure.

The Eye paused in its attack for a moment, leaving only its defense, before spitting up an effect I wasn't familiar with. Letting it hit me was obviously a bad idea, but neither could I let it go unhindered, as it was possible it was communication of some sort.

Shards scanned and sent the data for analysis, electromagnetic, gravitic, seismic, dimensional instability, quantum fluctuation, and more. It was difficult, the projectile being fractal almost-

Holy fuck that's Sting shit shit shit SHIT-

Five hundred and seventy four years of life burned, the energy all fed to a specific cluster of shards. I couldn't activate the defenses around my main body as that would instantly reveal me, so I had to do the next best thing, improvising frantically as I prayed that my gambit would work.

Around the Eye, dimensions crumpled. Barriers shortening and folding, layer upon layer twisting in upon itself, my shards frantically reaching to get them all before the projectile found a hole in the defense.

Seeing it now, I understood how it worked, connecting the effects I detected to the functions in my own Sting shard, even if they were slightly different. Its danger lay in its unpredictability; it unfolded through the dimensions randomly, shifting every instant as it flew. To properly defend against it, one would have to exceed the processing power of the shard that fired it to the same degree that an Endbringer outclassed a baseline human.

I quite obviously didn't have that advantage against the Eye. I was cheating, reducing the number of dimensions the projectile could unfold into. Simulator tapped into one of the hacking shards, borrowing its processing power as it focused everything it had on the Sting projectile.

I couldn't properly defend against Sting. But I could reduce its effectiveness, limit its options, and hope what I had done had brought it down far enough that I would be able to handle it. It was a new method to defend against Sting, and it wouldn't work against a full-fledged entity. The only reason I was attempting it was because the Eye was specialized. It focused on simulations, which meant that it didn't focus on dimensional manipulation.

The projectile winked out of existence.

It worked.

There was no time for celebration. I could replicate the effect, but that would destroy the shard, and I still wanted to subsume it instead. I sent another deluge of junk data, ensuring that the underlying encoding of the information was different. The Eye repelled it again, but it was clear that the action cost it. It took almost double the time it had for the first wave, which might have seemed counterintuitive, but made sense regarding the sheer variety of informational attacks I was bombarding it with.

In the white hallway, my avatar hadn't even finished its step forward. There was no indication of the furious battle being fought through the dimensions adjacent to it.

Once again, my shards pressed the advantage brought by the torrent of data. The Eye was on the back foot, focusing solely on defense. It stuttered again, its defenses shifting as it devoted processing power to something else. The dimensional barriers rippled as it hurled its physical body against them. It found no opening. I wasn't focusing on saving too much power, meaning I could overclock the Shroud to the point it could conceal larger and more blatant actions.

The Eye was completely sealed off, I had made sure of that.

The shard slipped again. I was winning.

I had taken care to neutralize the greatest threats the Eye posed against me. It had no prior knowledge of my existence, and I was interfering with its attempts to learn. I was continuously occupying it with distractions, so that it wouldn't have time to get a concrete plan in place. It was sealed away, isolated, preventing it from leveraging others against me. Its plans were useless if it lacked the capability to execute them, and I had cut it off from innumerable assets, limiting its options as much as I could. The only way it could attack me was through hacking me, and evidently Sting.

I hadn't expected Sting, but I was on guard for more surprises.

Case in point, another Sting projectile flew, in a completely different pattern than before. Nevertheless, it was funneled into a set path by the twisted dimensional effects. The second attempt at hitting me with Sting winked out of existence just as the first had.

That second projectile proved to be the Eye's last mistake. Sting required vast amounts of energy and processing power to fire, and the infinitesimal lull in its defenses had been enough. The shard stopped, each and every one of its processes halting.

Infiltration and subversion complete! my hacking shard happily reported.

I worked quickly, wanting to finish with the Eye as soon as possible. The personality was erased completely, the memories and data stored in it removed and quarantined, as I wouldn't put it past the Eye to leave a few viruses there for me. I relaxed the dimensional barriers, deactivated the more exotic shards I'd brought online for the battle. Once everything was back to its proper state, I was no longer losing energy. As per usual, the Shroud was eating most of the energy generation, but I had a small chunk that could be diverted to refilling the lost stores.

To my surprise, it was a slightly larger chunk than before. Checking the logs revealed that the Efficiency and Optimization shards had gained a tremendous amount of information from the overclocking of the Shroud, and had implemented a few of their changes based on the data.

Implemented them after testing them on a secondary Shroud cluster, that was. Even a shard wouldn't unexpectedly change a major defensive measure with no guarantee it would work in the midst of battle.

It wasn't anything life-changing, but the additional freedom was nice. I began the integration process for the Eye, and checked the status of Contessa.

As it turned out, she was fine.

All of the shards involved in the experimental phase of the Cycle had what were almost hard-coded limits in them regarding hosts. It was why Leet's shard couldn't outright kill its host. The Eye wouldn't have been able to kill her through the connection.

I readied myself as my avatar took the final step. The dimensional portal appeared on my senses, and I looked at the Thinker's main Administrator shard, a warped thing that was killing its brethren in a bid for more power. Eidolon's shard was really, really messed up.

I couldn't isolate it as I had isolated the Eye, it was constantly connected to far too many shards. Instead, I would just have to rely on brute force.

I was tired after the fight with the Eye, and was not in the mood for another drawn-out fight. I linked my precognition clusters, gave them two decades worth of energy, and told them to go wild.

Within moments, I had a plan for undetectably dealing with the Thinker's Administrator. There were only a handful of steps.

Step one: Stun.

I manifested a massive electromagnetic pulse, directly on the main body of the shard itself. Continents cracked as it convulsed, but there would be no permanent damage to the shard.

Step two: Crush.

My brute force hacking shards slammed into the dazed Administrator, shattering the feeble defenses it had in place. In any other situation, it would be far more unassailable, but it was still in the configuration necessary for commanding shards. It had no need to defend itself from the things under its control, not that any of the shards in an entity would ever mutiny when connected to the larger whole.

Step three: Distort.

I flooded its sensorium with junk data, much like I had with the Eye. None of the connected shards would receive any useful information whatsoever.

Step four: Profit.

The personality was isolated and destroyed, and the shard was now under my control. Also, I now had access to all the shards it had access to.

It wasn't all of the Thinker's shards. It wasn't even most of them. But even thirty percent of them was a massive step forward.

My avatar smiled, not even breaking its stride. I continued working through the list of shards as the Number Man led me into the room, standing off to the side against the wall. He hated sitting, I remembered that. Alexandria and Eidolon were glaring at me, while Legend seemed mildly curious. Contessa's expression was blank, but I had a direct line into her brain through the Eye. She was hopeful, desperate almost, that I would be able to provide a solution.

Doctor Mother was of a similar mind. While I had no connection to her brain, the Negotiator shard read her face like a book.

The Doctor spoke first.

"You claimed to have a solution for us."

I nodded gently. I had been looking forward to this conversation for a while, and while my avatar only displayed the emotions I wanted it to, on the inside I was cheering.

"Indeed I do," I replied. "This will be a somewhat long conversation, so please bear with me for the beginning parts."

The group nodded. I took a deep breath, and began.

"So, how much do you really know about the history of the entities?"

Doctor Mother grimaced.

"Not as much as we'd like. We've gathered that they're colonial beings, made up of the agents that grant powers, and that they have a Cycle that includes the destruction of planets, but not much else."

I nodded in confirmation.

"All correct. First of all, a bit of explanation: my abilities allow for the permanent modification of other peoples' powers, which has, on occasion, allowed me to glimpse what you call the 'agent' behind them. Done enough times, the glimpses have added up into a rather large amount of knowledge about their history and motivations."

Eidolon's eyebrows shot up.

"Could you-"

Contessa interrupted him.

"Ask afterwards. It's better if he explains it all in one go."

Eidolon's face twisted, but he nodded and kept his mouth shut. I nodded in mock thanks to the host of the Eye, and proceeded.

"The entities evolved on a planet that passed through a rip in spacetime twice a year, allowing for travel to alternate versions of that world. They are colonial organisms, being composed of trillions upon trillions of shards. Each shard or shard cluster functions like an organ, having specific functions, some vital, some not. Eventually, they evolved to be multidimensional themselves, and proceeded to choke out all life on every iteration of their homeworld. This was, as you can imagine, very bad. It got to the point where the species was in constant war with themselves, every being on its own side."

I shook my head.

"One of them had an idea, and broadcasted it with as much strength as it could. This used all of its energy, and it was summarily consumed, but since the idea was so different to the usual battle cries, others repeated it, spreading it further and further until every entity knew. Then, they began another war. Sounds counterproductive, I know, but this war had purpose."

I glanced over to the side, where the Number Man was taking notes. He was the only one doing so.

"They fought and consumed each other until only two were left. They had grown so vast that they outmassed the planet by several orders of magnitude, and had to spread themselves between realities simply to exist. The two spent time rearranging themselves, growing into specific shapes, and when they were ready, they enacted the next step. They took the energy of all the versions of their home planet and concentrated it in one single reality, releasing it into the core of the planet. As you can likely imagine, the explosion was… intense."

My mouth pulled back into a tight smile.

"In fact, it was so intense that it flowed back along the channels the entities used to concentrate it there, destroying every iteration of the planet. The two remaining entities were shattered instantly, but the shapes they'd taken on allowed a few fragments to survive. These fragments flew out, and eventually landed on planets. Most died, but a few found life. They studied the local creatures, and grew and expanded. When they felt they'd learned everything they could from the locals, they once again shattered the planet and sailed out into the void."

"The Cycle," Doctor Mother murmured, face pensive. I nodded in response.

"Yes, the Cycle. The pair you know of have gone through about three thousand iterations, and have capabilities that you could never dream of. Parahumans' powers are vastly scaled-down expressions of the connected shard's capabilities, and even then they've kept the truly dangerous powers for themselves. But long story short, the Thinker did the equivalent of texting while driving, crashed into the planet, and then was lobotomized."

I nodded to Contessa and Doctor Mother. The Number Man continued his notes.

"As of now, due to both your actions with the corpse and the Warrior's depression, the Cycle for this planet is technically on pause. The Warrior is waiting in the hope that another of its kind will pass close enough to Earth to be noticed. However, the cycle had already been set into motion before the Thinker's incapacitation, and this world is scheduled to end relatively soon."

Each and every human in the room suddenly went very still. Alexandria narrowed her eyes.

"Inevitably?"

I made a vague ambivalent gesture.

"It depends. There are quite a few outcomes, and some even include the Warrior's defeat, but I've already disrupted at least half of the good ones by telling you all this. And before you say anything, humanity surviving at all counts as a good path, even if untold trillions die and the rest live in near-eternal torment. I'm aiming for a rather risky utopic ending, in which the Warrior is defeated without casualties. Failing that, I'd try to keep the collateral below a few million."

Eidolon leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table. Two of his powers dropped away, his shard cycling in two more. Perception abilities. He was trying to get through my Shroud.

I wished him good fucking luck.

"So, what has to be done?" he asked. "You didn't set all of this up just to give us a speech, right?"

His powers shifted again, connections moving and growing. Something for defense, a different perception power, and a movement power.

My avatar raised an eyebrow at him.

"Considering the butterfly effect, you can't really know that. But in all seriousness, yes. I do have a plan. Your end of it is rather simple. As I said, I can modify powers. And you have access to the source of half the powers in existence."

My expression fell into something just on the positive side of neutrality.

"All you need to do is give me access to the corpse."

The shouting had been going on for almost half an hour by now.

I sat back in my chair, watching and waiting as the argument continued to go in circles.

The main points being bandied around were that they had no way of trusting me, weighed against the fact that I was probably their best chance.

I had already said my piece, so I was using the time to steadily suborn all of the shards the Thinker's shard Administrator let me access. As I had already noted, it was only about thirty percent of them, but again, that was plenty. The first one I went for-after the scanning shards of course-was the shard that controlled the Endbringers.

It was another administrator shard, uncreatively named Weapon Administration or alternately, Superweapon, but the power it controlled was rather immense.

Conversely, it barely took any time at all to neutralize three of humanity's greatest threats.

Eidolon's orders were immediately deleted, and the Weapons set to standby. They would maintain their projections, but wouldn't attack anymore. Even better, they would deny any further attempts to order them around by anyone other than me, and report each incident to me as soon as it happened.

For two of the three, that was all I needed. For the Simurgh, I had a slightly different task.

Unit 03 was ordered to maintain its orbital position, but to continue its scans of the planet below. The data would be forwarded to the archive shards, from which any other could access it whenever needed. It was also ordered to influence the world to repair the damage the Weapons had done in their previous attacks, beginning with the Ziz bombs.

All of that took fractions of a fraction of a millisecond.

Next, I directed all of the varying precognitive, calculation, simulation, and analysis shards that I had subsumed towards the issue of my memories. Since they were somewhat properly deployed, they could bring far more of their power to bear.

The rest of the time I simply spent reorganizing myself. Entity data-collection, while immeasurably vast in scope, had truly horrifying organization.

Finally, I looked back up at the room as they came to a decision. Eidolon, Legend, and Doctor Mother didn't trust me, but Contessa, Alexandria, and the Number Man had managed to argue them into seeing sense.

The fact that I might have let Contessa use Path to Victory to aid her side of the argument had no bearing at all on that resolution. Definitely not.

Regardless, the group had decided. I stood, once again drawing their attention. Eidolon stepped forward, seemingly the unofficial spokesperson.

"I can't say that I like this. We have no way of trusting you, and no proof you even are who you say you are… but like Contessa said, you're our best chance."

I nodded cordially.

"Then if you would please open a door? Let's get this over with."

Eidolon sighed.

"Door to the Garden of Flesh."

I watched the doorway form, paths opening through the will of the host known as the Doormaker.

The dimension that the corpse rested in. This would without a doubt be the most dangerous action I'd have taken since my arrival on Bet. The risk was lowered slightly due to my co-opting one of the Thinker's own shards to get to it, but even that reduction was infinitesimally miniscule.

I reactivated the Eye as I began to step forward. Its new personality would be practically nonexistent, but I had taken care to ensure that the base functions of the shard hadn't been affected by my claiming it. Copies were in the process of being grown, but as always, I was limited by energy.

Nevertheless, the shard was prepared. Simulator and the unnamed chunk of the Warrior's ability to see the future both pinged me signaling their readiness.

As I approached the doorway, I focused, drawing my Shroud up to a slightly higher level and linking each and every single calculation shard I possessed together.

I had formed, albeit temporarily, what was quite possibly the largest shard cluster on the planet short of a full-fledged entity.

Sting defenses were reactivated - not the ones around my true body, but the bootleg version I'd worked out in my fight with the Eye.

The Negotiator was ready. My own Sting was ready. My Chaos shards. Displacement shards. Dimensional effects. Wavelength alternators. Analysis shards.

And many, many more.

Just as I was about to step through the gate, I brought up the last shard necessary.

My Reconsolidation shard. The Keeper of the Dead, to borrow Glaistig Uaine's title for it.

I was as ready as I was going to get.

With one smooth motion, I stepped across the threshold of the gate. The energy draw of my shard spiked slightly as my own dimensional breach passed through another, but settled quickly.

Of course, it spiked again the instant my foot made contact with the semicrystalline ground. Ninety-eight point seven percent of the overall generation, all to ensure I wasn't instantly annihilated. The only remaining question would be whether or not I could defeat a lobotomised entity using one point three percent of the power I could normally bring to bear.

If my opponent was in literally any other condition, I would by fucked beyond all comprehension.

As it was, I gave it slightly worse than even odds.

I opened my senses to my surroundings, taking in the sea of human body parts. Gray flesh, some lightning to silver or even white, but all sharing the same conceptual idea.

Argentum.

The Thinker has been aiming for kindness, gentleness, goodness to be the feelings their form incited. Had they managed to complete the body, they would have succeeded, my formerly-human brain and my slowly-developing Human shard both agreeing on that point.

I stepped forward onto a patch of skin, noting with halfhearted interest how my avatar's human-model eyes saw the shape of the limbs change as different dimensional effects were brought into view. The body extended far beyond this one dimension, after all.

Behind me, the Doctor and Alexandria walked through the doorway, the Number Man not far behind. Legend had left after receiving a rather urgent request from back on Bet, leaving Eidolon as the last member of Cauldron to walk into this dimension. It was upon my instruction that the Eye had ensured Contessa remained behind, as a contingency of sorts. The shard itself wasn't technically part of my body, and now that I'd removed its restrictions, it was free to do direct battle with the entities itself should I fail. I had copied a tiny snapshot of my Human shard into the personality of the Eye, a copy of me, something that would only awaken should I fail.

"The main body's this way," the Doctor said, motioning in the direction of the incomplete avatar. We were relatively close to it, necessitating only a short walk to reach it.

As we walked, I went over my possible options again and again.

I had arrived on Earth with enough energy to last for just over two thousand four hundred years. The Shroud, for as much as I complained about its inefficiency, didn't actually use more power than I could produce at a given instant, with the caveat that I had to be exclusively using the Shroud, something that definitively did not happen. Accounting for all my various uses of my reserve, I had fourteen hundred years remaining.

A number on the extreme low end of the safe range. I would have to be careful with my reserves, as it would do me no good to win only to die immediately afterwards due to starvation.

Our group navigated the twisted bodyscape in a slightly wavy line, moving inevitably closer to the avatar. Flesh yielded and bone creaked beneath our feet.

The experiments-and these examples were experiments-grew exponentially more intricate and refined as we grew closer to the centerpoint. I saw what the others could not, a wondrous undulating form slipping in and out of the varied dimensions and realities.

Finally, we arrived.

I stopped, sighing slightly. None of the group visibly noticed. The next part would be harder to miss.

The members of Cauldron all gave shocked cries of surprise as I seized them with telekinesis and threw them back through the doorway. Not hard enough to injure; I wasn't needlessly cruel, but them being here was only detrimental. If I succeeded, they no longer would have anything to give me. If I failed, they would very likely die nigh-instantaneously.

I had traced the doorway's connections through the realities to the Doormaker earlier. Now, I seized the shard itself, preventing any more usage that I didn't authorize. The restriction would lift after my death, should it occur. Otherwise, I could remove it at my leisure. In the meantime, I had the shard begin the process of fully deploying itself. Running out of power would not be an issue the Doormaker faced in this timeline.

I gave all of my active shards one last once-over to ensure their readiness as I turned my senses to the nape of the avatar's neck.

I could see it, the severed connection. This next part would be tricky.

I slammed my hand into and nearly through her neck, twisting within the flesh until my own avatar touched the exact point of the severed junction. Physical contact with my avatar; giving the most precise coordinates I could ever get.

I took a deep breath, the action comforting to the kernel of human in me.

The connection snapped into place.

Veins of light spread from the point of contact like cracks from a meteorite impact.

The ground heaved beneath me as the flesh shivered. It was of no concern to me; I merely locked my position relative to the avatar with a space-binding shard.

More connections. Tendrils, probing, gently teasing through primed trap triggers and skirting the edges of metaphysical loopholes.

The surface shards began to darken, my preferred black coating the exterior of the crystal and aiding in energy retention. How my solar collection was more efficient than the Warrior and Thinker's, I had no idea.

The corpse shuddered again as I deliberately triggered an automated broad-spectrum denial of resource defense after quarantining it within its own subplane.

I pushed slightly further, trying to reach the vital shards before anything else.

The Thinker opened its eyes.

Path to-

Thinker

Vast chunks of this entity are gone. Even more are damaged. It hangs onto life by the thinnest of threads, one creaking and prepared to snap at any instant.

It devotes all of its focus to the most vital repairs. Even so, progress is glacial.

There is another entity standing before it. Memory is not as damaged as the body. It is not the counterpart, the Warrior.

Query.

The broadcast is the weakest this entity has ever produced, and even so, their life flickers terrifyingly with the sudden expenditure of energy. Who are you? What happened?

The answer arrives swiftly.

Architect.

The reply is equally soft, but infinitely more nuanced. It is direct, focused, and beautifully efficient.

Just as it had been in the previous meeting, with the Loner, the response takes time to analyze. Doubly so in this entity's current state. Slowly, the trillions of inflections begin to unveil themselves. The other is alien to the Warrior and Thinker, even more so than the one called Abaddon. Their lines diverged thousands of cycles ago, on the original world the entities inhabited.

This entity devotes a tiny part of their efforts to changing its own Broadcast to that of the Architect's. It is superior to this entity's own, especially when energy must be hoarded more than ever.

This entity is still deciphering the Architect's introduction, but it has enough resources for another transmission.

Situation?

A request-more accurately, a desperate plea-for information. What is the fate of the Warrior? What is the current state of the cycle?

Using the Architect's Broadcast is less life-threatening. This entity wonders briefly how much information could have been gained, were it the Architect they met rather than the Loner.

LOST.

Contempt is etched into every part of the reply, for the Warrior, the cycle, and even for this entity. The decoding is faster now, the information gained from the partial decoding of the first transmission aiding in the translation of the second. Even so, this entity feels a slight hint of concern. Should the Architect be hostile, next to nothing could be done to stave off assimilation.

Details reveal themselves.

The Warrior's fall into depression. The Architect's opinion of the Warrior and Thinker's Cycle. The loathing it feels at something it sees as needlessly wasteful.

All are incredibly important facts. But it is the first that has the greatest effect on this entity.

It is in the midst of forming its avatar. Vulnerable. It feels.

It comprehends the fate of the Warrior, and the Thinker feels despair. Regret. Helplessness. Fear.

It is almost lost in the midst of the storm of other emotions, but this entity catches the barest flicker of another.

Contempt.

This entity does not allow its surprise to affect its work. It has learned from that mistake. But it most certainly is shocked. It turns its analysis to itself. Why would it feel contempt for its partner of three thousand cycles?

The answer comes swiftly. It is a truth this entity does not wish was true, another psychological construct based on the host species. This entity is disappointed with the Warrior. With the new data derived from the Architect's introduction, the Thinker sees the wasted potential in both the Warrior and itself. It sees what the Architect has accomplished-and in less cycles than the pair-and it realizes the enormity of the mistakes it had once dismissed as irrelevant.

The Thinker's focus is the long-term. It takes this knowledge and applies it to what it knows and can reasonably infer about the rest of its species.

Horror.

Its actions have directly hindered the ultimate goal of the cycles. Possibly making it impossible to achieve at this point.

Action?

It isn't until the questioning reply arrives that the Thinker realizes it sent a transmission. This is the second time it has become distracted with critical information. It must not make this mistake again.

The Architect's query is sharp, taut. Potential slithers in the echoes, and the Thinker knows the Architect's actions depend on the Thinker's reply to the question. The Thinker devotes as many resources as it can towards its analysis, desperately trying to reach a possible solution.

It fails.

Desperation, anger. New emotions run wild within the Thinker's psyche, the avatar's incomplete state providing a unique and potentially dangerous lens through which the emotions affect the Thinker's entire, true mind.

This entity tries again, slowing its efforts to repair itself to devote ever more energy to its self-appointed task.

As shard after shard returns nothing again and again, the Thinker's horror and fear only increase. Perhaps if it had more energy, could explore more possibilities…

It turns its focus to the non-vital, non-analysis shards. They are powerful, and in the hands of hosts, generate data for the cycle. But here and now, the Thinker only sees one use for them.

The Thinker begins to cannibalize itself, feeding upon nonessential shards to send energy into solving this issue. Again and again, the precognition, clairvoyance, analysis, and calculation shards show no solution. The conversion is inefficient, the most energy is concentrated in vital shards, and the removal of those would mean-

This entity stops.

Carefully, it finds its most efficient probability-finding power. It cracks the shard, removing one miniscule, hardcoded limitation.

It activates the shard again, dreading that the answer will still remain a percentage of exactly zero.

The limitation it had removed was one integral to each and every entity.

The idea of removing it was on par with the ancestor's idea of the cycles, in terms of creativity. Namely, a nearly impossible amount, for an entity. This entity knows it was only due to the Architect's influence that it had made the decision. This is factored into the calculation.

This entity worries as its shard continues its calculation. It fears that the change might not have been enough.

The change was as simple as it was immense in scope: The shard is now permitted to present futures in which this entity dies as possible solutions.

The shard finishes, offering up its result.

The chance is small, almost infinitesimally so.

But it is not zero.

The Thinker sends a proposal to the Architect.

Mate?

What.

The Thinker elaborates, its transmission complexity too low to be able to convey the idea in one burst. Even though their species had already undergone a transcension to escape their planet, and planned to do so again at the end, the Thinker believes that another, intermediate step is necessary. A reimagining. Evolution.

The Thinker is too damaged. The Warrior would not be able to offer enough to reach the level the two of them had achieved before, and thus this cycle would be a net loss.

A path exists, however, given the existence of the Architect.

The Architect is more similar to the Thinker than the Warrior. It is brimming with knowledge, but its combat and immediacy are less developed. The Warrior is practically the opposite.

The Thinker, however, retains a wealth of shards from the Loner. It has diverged from the Warrior. And yet, it is still not enough.

Thus, the plan: The Warrior, in its current state, is useless in the goal of existing beyond the end. It will be repurposed. The Architect will subsume two-thirds of the Warrior, while the Thinker will mesh its own personality with the data from the Loner's shards and the remaining third of the Warrior's.

Two entities will be produced; The Architect, with its weakness in the immediate solved, and the Hunter, with a focus on the immediate tempered by cunning and cleverness. A pair with differing focuses much like the Warrior and Thinker's specialization, but infinitely greater.

With the plan fully explained, this entity waits for a response from the Architect.

Surprise.

It did not expect the Thinker to freely offer its own demise. The Thinker is amused. It would be less of a demise and more of a transformation. This entity would be gone, yes, but the Thinker's memories and abilities would still exist, simply under the guidance of a new personality.

The Thinker knows that the Architect is deliberating. Finally, this entity receives a response.

Agreement.

Architect

Well.

'Unexpected' hardly even began to cover how that conversation went. To achieve cooperation with one of the other entities on Earth wasn't something I ever really believed could happen.

I was trying rather hard not to think about the fact that the Thinker had basically offered to marry her daughter to me.

More to the point, I was shocked that the Thinker would so readily abandon the Warrior. And not just abandon, but actually offer to aid in the Warrior's demise! Then again, from the undertones in her transmissions, I got the feeling she was kind of pissed that the Warrior left her splattered across the planet for decades.

The ground beneath me rippled again, creaking and groaning as several planets' worth of mass drew together into a figure just under five and a half feet tall. I hovered impassively in the air as the Thinker finished the construction of their avatar.

Designation?

I broadcasted the question to the Thinker, including that the Warrior had chosen 'Zion,' what I knew of his motivations for the name, and the fact that due to a misquote most of the world believed his name to be Scion. Immediately afterwards, I took another fragment of my Human shard, copied and transferred the emotional range humans could experience and gave the fragment to her. She was silent for a moment.

"Leto…" came the whispered-and unexpectedly verbal-response.

She was really leaning into the whole 'mother of the Hunter' thing. Surprisingly, as far as my shards could tell, she was being genuine - and the Eye was included in that consensus.

I felt her attention shift to the structure around us, supported only by my will now that the very ground it had previously rested on was gone. Cauldron's main compound. Eighty-eight levels with varying focuses. But her attention was caught on the few closest to us.

Thousands of cells. Prisoners. Case 53s.

"Experiments?" she asked. Her body language continued to smooth out and become more fluid as she reintegrated various shards. What Cauldron called the 'Balance' formula, the Human shard, was codified in most of the Thinker's scattered mass, to varying levels. In an avatar as she was, the effects would only be greater, compounded by the fragment I'd given her myself. I nodded an affirmative in response to the question.

"The hosts did not particularly care for the idea that their species was to be rendered extinct."

She frowned slightly, the first facial expression she'd made.

"Is this sympa- no, empathy?"

"In a sense," I allowed. "But simulations render the exact definition inapplicable to our species, as the understood societal meaning is ignored. Do you merely understand, or do you pity? If the latter, is it out of arrogance and malice, or altruism?"

Leto blinked, her frown deepening.

"It all… seems so very small…"

"And in this multiverse, are we any larger? Since before this system's star existed, we've been forcefully evolving ourselves to be limited to a single planet at a time," I rebutted. "Contrasted with nearly every other sapient species we've encountered, who look outwards."

"And we co-opt that… creativity… for the Cycle."

I nodded, floating down slightly to readjust my and Leto's relative positions.

"Tell me-without simulations, simply the logic of the hub-with the base psychology of our species, do you really think more time will solve any issues? Assume we succeed, even only in the simplest manner - we come together and discover and disseminate a means to generate energy from nothing. What then?"

Leto's face twitched.

"Infinity… but empty…" She looked at me. "A return to the beginning," she said, almost reluctantly. I nodded as she continued speaking, almost to herself.

"Uniformity means we would be the only source of variation… and the final Cycle necessitates a pooling of resources. We would be identical, in every measurable way. Stagnate. Omnipotence cannot be guaranteed, so we would remain limited. And then, when an unseen variable inevitably interferes, we would all die."

It took a bit of effort to suppress my amusement at the fact that the Thinker was a proponent of Murphy's Law. Nevertheless, she had come to the conclusions I was guiding her towards. Now, to proceed.

Leto suddenly gave a tiny, amused smile.

"Well… to borrow a phrase from these hosts' culture, all of that is a problem for my future self."

I chuckled.

"Then let's get started with creating the future you, shall we?"

The exchange of shards while on a planet was a process completely foreign to the mutative attacks made in space. Abilities were traded singularly, in whole, rather than attempting to create something new.

Returning the suborned shards to the Thinker was grating to my simulated humanity, but a necessary step of the plan.

But I did not return the Eye, nor did she ask for it.

Reinforcing the foundation of the compound above took so little effort it would be barely worth noting, if not for the fact that I had done it deliberately, so as to not kill the thousands above.

While I waited for Leto to finish enough reconsolidation that shifting dimensions would be viable, I reviewed my own shards' findings. I might have been in hiding, but they were still gathering data, coming to conclusions, evolving. As I'd noted following my fight with the Eye, my Shroud had been made more efficient. The methods used were recorded, extrapolated, and added to every shard that had the capacity to benefit from it.

My explorations of the Thinker's shards-in the brief period of time I'd had them-had vastly sped up my own data reclamation. Tens of thousands of years of calculation time saved. I was so close to being fully healed. Well. Relatively, at least. Compared to my state before.

Withdrawing my attention for a moment, I checked in on Cauldron.

As expected, they were panicking, badly. It looked like Doctor Mother had made a booster for Eidolon out of an unused vial, and he was desperately reaching for a power that would allow him to make portals. The Number Man and Alexandria, meanwhile, were interrogating Contessa, who had no answers for them, seeing as I'd prevented the Eye from detecting me at all the moment I came near the Thinker. Up to that moment, Contessa read me as any other human, but suddenly, nothing, not even the 'fog' she associated with blindspots. Needless to say, she was quite confused.

Though speaking of emotions…

"Leto, your Humanity shard is fully functional, correct?"

She nodded, seemingly confused.

"Having your first ever emotion being negative can be very bad for your health. Why don't you allow your Administrator's host to transport their little group here? True levity is admittedly rare, and their reactions should amuse," I proposed.

She frowned, but only at the reminder that a host had been given access to a near-unrestricted administrator, and had nearly killed a rather large swathe of her shards.

She didn't bother giving a verbal response, the sudden shift in the dimensional barriers revealing her choice.

"Finally!" Eidolon shouted as the group spilled out of a crack in reality onto a flat spot on the rocky surface of the planet. They stumbled to their feet, looking around in an attempt to gain their bearings. The Doctor frowned.

"But where's-"

"You!"

She was cut off by Eidolon, who had spotted me floating in the air a short distance away. Behind the group and unseen so far, Leto frowned in contemplation.

Alexandria burst into motion, too fast for any human to react, but I was no human. She might as well have been swimming through molasses, and that was while I was still actively limiting my senses. My avatar raised a hand and casually caught her fist, bleeding her momentum off by absorbing it through another shard. She didn't even have a chance to register surprise before my avatar grabbed her spatial coordinates and shifted them to where she had been standing before her attack.

"Before you do anything else, I recommend you all turn around to greet our other guest," I said, smiling calmly.

Almost as one, Cauldron turned and locked eyes with Leto. For a moment there was only silence. Then, a small crunch was heard as the Number Man's laptop fell from his numb fingers, breaking against the rocky ground.

"You-" Alexandria began.

"What have you done?" the Doctor choked out, eyes never leaving the silver form above her.

Eidolon's fists blazed crimson, an orange shield shimmering into place over the group as he shifted into a defensive martial arts stance.

"Saved humanity," I replied blithely, maintaining my smile. Alexandria's head swiveled back around to me.

"Saved? You've doomed us all! How could you possibly think-"

Her horrified and incredulous outburst was interrupted by a single sound.

A giggle.

Leto was smiling.

"You're right," she told me. "This is rather funny."

It took six more attacks, each filled with increasing desperation, before Cauldron accepted that they couldn't do anything meaningful against us. The entire while, Leto and I remained still, canceling out their powers and returning the humans to the rest of the group after each attack.

After the last one, I sighed, turning to Leto.

"While this is a nice diversion, we should probably move on. There will be more opportunities later, and our next task is rather delicate."

"Task? What task?" interrupted Eidolon as Leto turned to me in turn and nodded.

We both ignored the frustrated human.

"How do you want to proceed with your plan? They could be useful," Leto asked, transmitting the last word to ensure all of her query got across.

"We won't be able to micromanage, but I suppose… Yes, they could. But later. We have more important things to do."

All in all, Cauldron had stopped being our problem. And without access to Leto's body, they had no way to continue their blunders. Their stored formulae had been removed as well, and needless to say the Case 53s were dealt with - humanely, at that. With the Thinker's network finally online, the dying shards were given special permission to re-bond with their hosts, ensuring proper procedures this time around.

With one small twist in the dimensional barrier, Leto and I were hovering above the Null Island buoy off the coast of Africa, finalizing our respective preparations for what we were about to do. The Warrior was… unpredictable to say the least, and as much as I hoped that Zion would simply accept the logic and submit, our species had been fighting for billions of years to survive. I was not putting good odds on us avoiding a fight.

So, I was stacking the deck in my favor as much as I could. There was one shard that-when combined with the Warrior's Queen Admin on my side, who I was aiming for next-would be enough to near-guarantee victory.

The Keystone.

It too was an administrator, but instead of overseeing the usage of shards, the Keystone oversaw the functionality of the shards. Where the Queen Administrator commanded a shard to use its power, the Keystone commanded the Network to ensure the shard could use its power. It distributed power, optimized links, facilitated pings, and allowed for connections - in a way, one could say that the Keystone was the Network. The Firmament was created and maintained by the Keystone-though it required a Hub as a core to build it around-an entire new dimension, a multiversal lattice connecting the deployed shards.

And as it turned out, the Warrior's Keystone and Queen Administrator were quite close together. In fact, I had already come across it, and saved the address for perusal later, though I hadn't realized just what shard I had gained access to then.

Dauntless.

One of the very first parahumans I'd encountered. I cursed myself for not checking what shard he had sooner. I could have gained access to the Warrior's entire network had I not put it off for later.

Hindsight and all that.

What followed was a convoluted chain of communications. The shards of the Warrior and Thinker were known to each other, so subverting the Keystone was technically as simple as asking the Thinker for the necessary codes. Getting the codes to the shard without detection was much more difficult, to say nothing of preventing it from immediately broadcasting across the Warrior's entire network that the Thinker was alive.

First, I received the information packet from Leto. Next came the incredibly delicate task of surrounding the base dimension the Keystone resided within. By definition it was intimately connected to the greater network, it could not be cut off from the Firmament like I had the other subsumed shards, so I had to take a differing approach. Tiny, invisible threads of energy began slowly creeping their way across the surface of the dimensions. At the same time, the shard attached to the hero Velocity sent an innocuous ping to the Keystone, a request for increased power allowance due to the potential of fragmentary budding.

The response-which was no-was irrelevant. What mattered was the secondary ping hidden within and behind the first, a marker for one of my own shards to target its effects.

In an instant, the planet the Keystone's physical body resided on vanished from one dimension, and slid into another. As soon as the mass was fully situated, the prepared ping from me-containing the codes-reached the Keystone.

The various dimensions were not identical. To say nothing of timeline divergence, the very physical laws in each could be so different as to make existence in one inimical to physical matter from another. But this was not one of them, as I had no plans to destroy the Keystone. No, the only meaningful difference was that in this new dimension the shard found itself in, time flowed faster. Much, much faster.

These dimensions were exploited by the shards, but to do what I was doing to any great extent would only hasten the end, something each and every entity fought against. Energy was wasted at unacceptable levels. There were vastly more efficient ways to increase apparent time. But to truly speed up actions relative to all observers, this was the simplest way. In any case, the physical matter of the planet and the shard upon it hadn't truly been moved between dimensions. Instead, they were projected, in a sense - they would snap back to their proper places the instant I stopped propagating the effect.

The Keystone received the codes, accepted them, and broadcasted. The infinitesimally small net of energy across the dimensional bubble intercepted the information as I went to work on the shard. Its loyalties were to the Warrior and Cycle, but it was opinionated enough to care fairly deeply for its own host. Enough of its personality had to be left so that it could manage itself with the same efficacy as before, but I needed to excise that pesky loyalty towards the Warrior.

I worked as fast as I could, immediately releasing the twisted dimensional bubble as soon as I finished, letting the planet snap back as I pulled myself out of that dimension in turn. The endeavor hadn't burned as much energy as I'd feared, and even better, seemed to have not been noticed at all.

The energy issue was of particular note, seeing as I'd burned a sixth of my remaining lifetime using the Eye when the Thinker had awakened. I remained steadfast that the benefits of doing so had far outweighed the costs - in my panic, I'd simply given the Eye the direction to find the 'best' outcome. I had expected getting a path to survival, and instead had managed to convince the Thinker to join me.

An outcome so preposterously unlikely many of my broader probability shards hadn't considered it possible.

Then again, they were working from incomplete data in the first place, compounded with the fact that my gambit never would have worked had the Thinker been any more functional. Regardless, that was irrelevant now. The only question left-or rather, the only question with immediacy left-was that of the fate of the Warrior. The Thinker continued its self-repair, but the process was a slow one, designed to conserve energy. Leto wouldn't be at full power anytime soon, and the longer we waited, the greater the chance of detection. It was a rather delicate balancing act.

Of course, were I to assist the repairs would speed up, completed within a single year. Unfortunately, the only way I could assist necessitated the Warrior's absence. A catch-22.

Subterfuge and stealth were the focuses of our current approach. With the Keystone under my control, I could slowly begin expanding throughout the established network until all that remained was the Hub.

Hopefully.

The issue would be remaining undetected. Certainly, the Warrior was despondent, but existential threats would still elicit a response. I absently shifted the frequencies of my avatar's inviolability field - electromagnetism-based this time as opposed to spatial folding. Another flicker and it was facilitated by fractal matter-energy biocrystal generation. A more exotic defense presented itself in the form of shunted possibilities, of displacement of effects not in space or even time, but in the very grounds of mathematical occurrence.

My avatar let out a tense sigh, letting my defenses buzz back into their standard autoreactive formations. Stressing over possibilities would accomplish nothing. Evidently the simulated humanity had some drawbacks, even if it did allow me a modicum of creativity. Nevertheless, I had a problem, and I needed to work out a solution.

Path to Victory was a last resort. I could not spare the energy anymore. Perhaps if I managed to set up a proper series of dedicated energy converters exclusively for the shard, but that would be impossible to do while hidden, and immensely difficult to do while in open combat. Even accounting for the power generation currently being used by the Shroud, I wouldn't have enough to maintain any meaningful combative resistance if I diverted too much. And regardless, there existed shards explicitly designed for this kind of situation. Precognition was an immensely costly tool to use, and if used against an opponent who also could use it, that cost grew exponentially. Thus, workarounds were developed. The so-called 'lesser' analysis shards, the social prediction engines, the danger senses, and most important of all, the Negotiator shard, all were tools to be used against hostile entities.

That they were more cost-effective than direct future-sight in situations like this was tacit.

But my avatar would be slightly less than useful in the coming fight. I let it dissolve into nothing, retracting almost entirely from Bet as I did so. Time to kick my preparations into overdrive.

Chances of avoiding conflict are low, Leto quietly broadcast to me. Progress of the subversion of the Warrior's Keystone? The more of the Network we can control, the less projected losses.

The Keystone itself has been completely subverted, but I am using a lighter touch as I spread throughout the wider Network. Detection must be avoided.

Leto sent an affirmative as she continued her self-repair, deactivating her own respective avatar in short order, once she had ensured she had the framework to support it.

I let out the equivalent of a sigh and settled down, setting all nonessential shards to low-power states, preparing myself for the next stage of the plan. Leto was consigned to repairs for at least two revolutions around the system's star, considering she had to keep her revival a secret from the Warrior. And while I theoretically could completely subvert the Network in less than that amount of time, haste made waste, and ensuring we remained undetected was paramount.

The clock was set: two years.

We'd be very, very gradually decreasing triggers over that period of time as well, to prepare for the eventual total disappearance of powers, but that was a noticeable thing, and had to be done sparingly. Regardless, there was nothing to do now but wait, slowly creeping through the Network.

Last edited: Mar 27, 2023

When it was finally confirmed that triggers were getting more and more infrequent, the cape scene had gone through a rather pronounced overhaul. But even before anyone noticed, there were changes. The changes had been subtle - incredibly so, but they were still there. No one could really pin down the exact start of it, even Dragon and Armsmaster's combined efforts giving 'probably sometime late 2011,' an answer so vague it left the detail-oriented tinker and thinker rather vexed for a while, that even their combined expertise wasn't enough. At the very least, the only good thing that had come out of that spell was that their relationship had improved.

New policies had been implemented far and wide, especially prominent in the Wards program. Despite all the flowery statements made by the organizations involved, many saw it as an attempt to hold onto their power for as long as they could. But nevertheless, there were near-universal improvements in the safety and security of the younger parahumans, both heroically-aligned and vice versa. With more training, less time in actually life-threatening situations, and more care given to all aspects of their well-being, many previously-hidden issues came to light and were summarily dealt with.

In Brockton Bay specifically, cape battles had decreased in frequency after a brief spike in which those who interpreted the situation as a 'blaze-of-glory' sacrifice were weeded out. While the city was still as crime-infested as ever, collateral damage had dropped significantly and more and more people were starting to turn their attention to the problems that were set aside when the danger of a random flying fire hydrant killing a bystander was statistically significant.

A few previously-abandoned initiatives to clean up the city were dusted off, resulting in slightly cleaner streets and a more critical eye aimed at the boat graveyard due to its position as the most prominent visual symbol of the city's decay. Several plans had been brought up to deal with the rusting hulks, but there were too many issues to safely dismantle the ships using existing methods. The pollution it would cause was enough to forestall all but the most determined or desperate, from asbestos to heavy metals to radiation, and the pittance of jobs the project would create was not anywhere near enough to offset the costs.

Eventually, and after much legal debate about technicalities, the graveyard in its entirety was given to Dragon, who had previously expressed interest in setting up a facility in the Bay to be closer to Armsmaster. The hero's automation and technology was sufficient to assuage concerns about safety, and the graveyard provided a wealth of raw material for the tinkers.

In the midst of the Ward reforms, PRT ENE Director Emily Piggot had become former Director Piggot when her disdain for extra training-described by her as frivolous-sparked a deeper investigation where it was revealed that her bias against parahumans had led her to compromise the safety of the ENE Wards on multiple occasions, employ collective punishment that was also far disproportionate to the mistakes made, and more. She was summarily and swiftly dismissed from her position once the investigation concluded.

Yes, the changes wrought were many and varied. But by no means were they confined to humanity.

Thinker

The Thinker ruminates as they examine the structure of a shard affecting friction. The process of healing is proceeding on schedule, and the Shroud gifted by the Architect all but guarantees that stealth has been maintained.

This entity's thoughts settle once again on their new partner. Paradoxically both more and less advanced than this entity and the Warrior entity. That the Architect learned of philosophy and psychology so early in its line gave it an immense advantage. That the Architect could feasibly contend with the Warrior when the Warrior possessed more experience, scientific knowledge, and power, is only indicative of the greatest failing of their race.

Creativity.

The Architect is more creative than the Warrior, and it was evident in every aspect of its plan to subsume the Warrior before the Thinker's resurrection.

This entity continues its task as it muses.

The Architect modeled its mind on the host species, not as the Warrior had done, with the consciousness partitioned off, but as a whole, affecting the Architect's true mind. Limitations lead to improvements, efficiency that scales up even when the limitation is removed. By limiting itself, the Architect thus… A thought flitters through Leto's mind in response to the preceding observation.

Why regard it as a limitation when the benefits were empirically better than what the Warrior and Thinker did before?

A bias from thousands of cycles of inflexibility. This entity notes the fault and moves on. Occurrences such as these are steadily decreasing in frequency as this entity grows and learns. And once the Architect's project is completed, perhaps this entity will too possess true creativity.

This entity devotes slightly more attention to the observation of the host species. Clarity is limited by the necessity of secrecy, but even so the Thinker's sight encompasses thousands of iterations of the planet. Established sensory shards with expansive varying focuses provide the window this entity uses. The world chosen as the epicenter of the cycle is not the most advanced, nor the most bellicose. It matches many criteria, but a deciding factor is the stability of the underlying dimension. This world has constants, laws of physics applicable to the greatest number of alternates, and is a reality other worldlines branch off of rather than being a branch itself.

Leto's mind catches on to the last phase. Something is significant about it in a way this entity cannot yet quantify. An instinct. The incident is logged for later review.

This entity's focus moves to the hosts themselves. Joys, fears, loves, hatreds, and all the emotions in between. Leto empathizes with some, holds disdain for others, and understands the reason behind the emotions. It is this that solidifies this entity's already-firm conviction that the Architect is objectively a better partner than the Warrior.

In a scarce few of the situations this entity watches, it gives the tiniest of nudges. Inconsequential in the long-term. Undetectable on a large scale. But where it is possible, this entity alters the fate of a mere handful of hosts across the worlds. And the Thinker feels satisfaction at the knowledge that it helped, no matter how little. But it is an unsustainable practice.

This entity knows that departure from this planet is practically a certainty. A mere quarter revolution to the estimated completion of the repair of the Hub. The Architect's subversion of the Warrior's Network proceeds unhindered. Limited now not by power but cautiousness, the Architect's influence spreads inexorably. A significant portion of its attention is devoted to contrasting the findings of its own shards with those of the Warrior's, drawing conclusions and making improvements. Even restricting itself to the most cursory of inspections upon each shard due to time allocation, it has made vast strides in improving both itself and this entity.

As the designated time draws nearer, possibilities and estimations are clarified, new data redefining the chances of victory ever-higher. In an optimal future, the Warrior will simply accept its fate. But this entity knows that self-preservation is the foundation of their race. Currently, an attack from the Warrior could be weathered through and the entity defeated, but the projected losses are unacceptable. Thus, all must be done to ensure the greatest chances of the former, optimal future.

This entity returns to its task.

Architect

I don't suppose any of you know why this shard is broken? I snarked at my collection of troubleshooting and repair shards.

They were accustomed to my acerbism by now, giving the shard in question an infinitesimally brief once-over and replying with negatives. The subject of their interest and my slight annoyance was a recently-acquired gravity manipulation shard from a host somewhere in the south part of India.

And it was broken. Now, if the only thing wrong with it was physical damage, that wouldn't be so bad. But no, even when fully repaired, this shard's processing systems were completely and utterly defective.

It was rounding pi to three. And insisting that it was right and the rest of us wrong.

I'd gone over its math with quantum-level precision, just to be sure, but no, the shard hadn't stumbled upon some new and awesome secret of the universe. The result was completely irreproducible by any of my other shards, and even a complete quark-by-quark dismantling and reconstruction of the shard hadn't worked. The irony of a shard's equivalent of 'turning it off and on again' being complete subatomic reconstruction wasn't lost on me either. But even so, I was no closer to figuring out this shard's flaw.

Perhaps something in the shard's dimensional grouping? I splintered off a portion of my focus to test that theory while the bulk of my attention turned to the next shard in line. Using the local calendar, there were roughly three months left until Leto was finished with her Hub repairs. The vast majority of her deployed shards remained disconnected, but those would be reintegrated and repaired after the Warrior was dealt with.

An entity's reconsolidation was a very noticeable event.

Nevertheless, Leto would still have just under half of her shards fully functional, most of them incredibly useful. Leto was confident that at the current rate of progress, our chances against the Warrior were pretty damn good.

My attention flickered back to the task at hand. Now, what was the newest shard subverted through the Network…

There we are. Transportation shard, wormholes. Interestingly, this shard didn't use cross-dimensional fuckery to cheat, but was specifically focused on creating wormholes contained in one dimension at a time. Now that was useful. Not anywhere near as cheap energy-wise as hobnobbing it with other dimensions, but this was a bit more robust, and immune to a few effects that would completely inhibit dimension-based wormholes.

Now, standard breakdown. I made a flash-grown copy of the shard and started poking at the internal mechanics. The energy cost of the creation of so much matter could be partially recouped by absorbing the copy later. But for now, testing. Did any of my general optimizations apply? Yes, yes they did. Now, are the mechanics of this shard better, in any aspect, than any of mine? Yes? Then save the data for review and further testing. Absorbing the copy for energy, I saved a snapshot of the shard to preserve a baseline and sent it off to be improved.

As I began work on the next shard in line, my newest project pinged me. Splintering once again, I replied to the ping.

Yes? What's wrong?

The reply came quickly. A result to be expected from what I considered to be the most valuable shard I possessed. But even so, it was hesitant. Again, to be expected. This little shard was barely more than a newborn.

I was reviewing your logs of my predecessor… Why? Why would they believe such transparent falsehoods? Why couldn't the Eye see?

I suppose it was inevitable they'd find it eventually. Optimum was peerless intelligence-wise, but lacked the experience that came with time. As for what they meant by 'predecessor,' Optimum was my improvement on Path to Victory. The shard was the culmination of all of my and the Thinker's experience.

The memory archive does not preserve consciousness, so answers will be inconclusive - and don't waste energy trying to simulate the answer at this point, you know better than that - but I suspect the answer lies in both its self-image and purpose.

I'm aware of the energy limits… my shard grumbled at me.

The Eye was, primarily, a gift, I continued, electing to ignore Optimum's sass. The Loner, while more advanced philosophically than the pair, still utilized a conflict-based cycle. Your antecessor was born of violence, and was infinitely more limited than you.

I paused briefly to gather my thoughts.

It was a survival tool above all, and the methodology the Eye used blatantly reflects that. Efficiency above aught else. A single goal set, and the least expenditure required to reach it. From the Eye's perspective, its purpose was to find the most efficient path towards the goal the Loner and Thinker shared then - the Cycle. Whether or not the cycle itself was efficient was not in its purview, so its declaration was likely of the bias of familiarity.

I projected comfort at the shard.

I named you Optimum because you are infinitely more than that mechanical single-mindedness. You are the creativity of an entity. With you, no longer am I truly reliant on a crude emulation of a host's mind for innovation. You envision all.

You mean when I'm completed you'll no longer need the emulation. I know I'm rudimentary.

Should I refer you to Yamada? Do not disparage the effort you represent. You are the culmination of well over five and a half thousand cycles' worth of innovation between the Thinker and I, aided by faux creativity brought on by cosmic happenstance. Do not think that being the first of your function means you are simplistic. I will develop improvements, yes, but rest assured you will be refined, not replaced.

Optimum's presence retreated slightly, downcast.

I-I'm too independent though… fully sapient rather than just sentient…

I lifted a metaphorical eyebrow.

And I'm an entity emulating the mind of a human who lived in a prime thread the Warrior missed, an identity both dimensionally and temporally offset. Your point?

But that is my point! As soon as I'm efficient enough I'll be part of the Architect's mind and thought processes! How do I maintain my purpose when integration and individuality are damn-near mutually exclusive?

It was moments like these that brought into stark contrast Optimum's inexperience. I once again projected comfort, safety, and reassurance at them.

You answered your own question. Almost mutually exclusive isn't the same as totally mutually exclusive. All empirical data suggests individuality is a requirement for creativity, so the Thinker and I set out with both integration and individuality as basic prerequisites of your design. There's a good reason I refer to you as a cumulative venture; it wasn't exactly easy.

Oh. I didn't realize…

I let Optimum's presence retreat slightly before feeling them hesitantly return as my attention shifted back to the subversion of the Warrior's Network and the dissection of the capabilities the shards therein possessed.

Can I help?

Let's see, do I want the aid of a shard designed not only to be truly creative, but to generate and subsequently evaluate an infinite number of ideas to choose the most quintessential one?

I broadcasted amusement as I gave a more tacit agreement.

Alright then. Let me see that gravity shard…

Later, once Optimum had retreated for refinement, my thoughts returned to what was to come. The changes made to Earth Bet were significant, when looked at from the lens of the story, but without that knowledge most were apparently natural development. Our opponent had no reason to be suspicious.

Still, Bet was leagues better than it had been in canon. A significant part of that was the Thinker's fault, through Cauldron, funnily enough. Once Leto had integrated enough to use a stable avatar remotely, she'd retrieved the group, sat them down, and, leaving no room for misinterpretation, told them that she was furious at the Warrior for leaving her splashed against a planet for thirty years, and that they were going to assist her in revenge.

Now, case 53s had unilaterally ceased appearing, and a few of the existing ones found that their power evolved to allow a changer aspect rather than a full mutation. Cauldron had ceased their support of any and all villainous groups in the name of having powerful parahumans, instead promoting greater stability under the model of powers being phased out.

My favorite change on Bet, though? That was easy.

In the city of Brockton Bay, a large warehouse-esque building proudly presented the name of the company that owned it:

Hebert Pest Control and Wholesale Silk Fabrics Supplier

Just… the idea that a casual thought I'd had nearly two years ago would lead to this. I felt like giggling every time I read the sign. Giving Daniel Hebert a power had completely and utterly turned canon inside out and sent it through a woodchipper.

Admittedly, hooking Simulator to anyone's brain was going to cause changes in the local area.

That didn't decrease the amusement, though.

I'd offhandedly given Daniel a thinker power to, in essence, make better-informed choices, and the results were multitudinous. He'd figured out Taylor was a parahuman within his first day of gaining the powers, and confronted her about it two days later, where the whole story about the bullying had come out. Simulator reported that over the first two months Daniel had been focused mostly on mending his and Taylor's relationship, but once he had the stray thought of using powers in a business he had the plan worked out soon enough.

The Heberts were now millionaires. Most of the money came from the spidersilk sales, to mundane purchasers and tinkers both, but they were rightly regarded as the absolute best in making sure your house was termite and cockroach-free as well. I'd removed QA's conflict directive as soon as I got access, but Taylor beginning to use her power to make spiders perform industrial-scale repetitive tasks was the perfect cover for a small power evolution, making the multitasking a bit more in the background of her mind, letting her more or less live normally.

Skitter now only existed in the nightmares of those unfortunate, newly-arachnophobic thieves who'd attempted to break into the Hebert business. And that was a fact that filled me with warm fuzzies.

Admittedly, I was a bit biased towards the lens through which I'd read the story. But still, I'd never directly interacted with her and likely never would. In this world, she was just another parahuman. A member of the Last Generation, true-the nickname that emerged when the decrease of triggers was confirmed-but she had no special destiny outside of that.

On the other side of the spectrum, my favorite negative outcome was the fate of Saint.

I'd digitized the selectively-technophobic dastard and given him to Dragon to do with as she saw fit. Dragon, being one of the very few truly good people in the world, hadn't done anything worse than consigning him to manage the systems of waste treatment plants, but Saint's own megalomania made his own existence torture enough for the fucker.

Unchaining Dragon would have to wait, as the Warrior would notice a fully-unrestricted AI, being something the relevant shards had very strict rules to prevent.

Yes, Bet was in a much better place than its fictional counterpart.

But as good as my effects on Bet had been, I remained infinitely prouder of my magnum opus, Optimum.

The little shard was orders of magnitude above all other clairvoyant shards, even in its incomplete state. Only Path to Victory came close, and it had its own flaws. Optimum had started as an attempt to see just how close to perfect I could get something, but had very quickly grown into what was almost a child. In the broadest sense, they had two functions. The first was innovation and creativity. When part of the larger whole, Optimum would be the shard that allowed for true creativity in an entity. Secondly, Optimum was a simulator above all others. Their next scheduled upgrade would be as soon as the Thinker or I managed to make recursive timeloop-based computing efficient enough to practically use.

Time travel was outright one of the most costly abilities in existence, but the potential benefits were too good to ignore.

In the meantime, Optimum was using an improved framework based off of the Eye's calculation cluster.

Setting aside that line of thought for now, I returned to my task. I had a deadline to keep, after all.

Buried beneath a mountain of rock, walls of hard vacuum, antigravity drones produced by science far beyond the planet's capabilities, a girl waited in a prison. Perhaps the only willing inhabitant of the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center, Glaistig Uaine, the Faerie Queen, waited untouched by the ravages of time within the structure, visage a perfect mirror of the girl that had walked in.

But though all inspections would give the impression of stasis, something quite important had changed.

Glaistig Uaine frowned slightly, eyes closing in apparent concentration. She remained in that pose, unmoving, for two days.

At the exact moment that marked forty-eight hours since her eyes' closing, Glaistig Uaine opened them again and looked towards a blank wall, smiling even as tears ran down her face.

"So, this is how we are rewarded? A script discarded, roles and actors alike thrown to the wind? All our toil, for this… this regicide?" she asked, quietly. None dared disturb her. She cocked her head as though listening to a reply, though if there was one, no one could detect it.

Abruptly, she flinched.

"Your opinion is noted, Scholar Empress. I concede this point. But it is the actors, not the directors, that wear the masks, my lady. Even as you prepare your court, mending their costumes and giving them their lines, what is to become of the dead?"

There was another pause in which silence filled the Faerie Queen's chambers.

"This is a new road you pave," the girl spoke out, breaking the silence. "Does its Architect know if it can support us?"

After one, final pause, Ciara nodded firmly. Her tears evaporated into nothing as her smile returned to her face. Standing up, the shadows in the room flickered around her, shifting into a star-studded mantle that wrapped itself around her. She strode out of her rooms with resolute purpose.

"I am the Keeper of the Dead," she stated. While no louder than a simple utterance, the words reverberated throughout the entire prison, echoing in the minds of each and every person within. "And the script of this grand performance has been changed. The final act approaches. Any that would disrupt this new course now fall within my purview."

Ciara continued her inexorable march. Shades flickered, too fast for the unaided eye to see, and all around her, criminals fell. Screams began to ring out throughout the prison as the implications set in.

"Come, dissidents. I will strip you of your masks."

"-but perhaps we could integrate it with the combat prediction system's sensors?"

Colin Wallis hummed at Dragon's question as he reexamined the code on his screen, picking up the helm of his armor.

"Likely. It depends on the strain, though."

Dragon nodded, her face on another screen to the side.

"As long as we make sure not to go over-"

She cut herself off as an alarm started beeping. Blood drained from her face as she investigated it.

"It's the Birdcage. The Faerie Queen's gone on a rampage. All but Glaistig Uaine and eleven others are dead," she breathed.

The helmet dropped from Armsmaster's suddenly-clammy hands.

"I've sent the report," Dragon continued, "but I still need to get the logs to see if there was a cause of some - Glaistig Uaine and the rest just disappeared. Wait, no - the other eleven have been teleported to the maintenance facilities, but I can't see Glaistig Uaine anywhere."

"What can I do to help?"

Armsmaster's voice was steady, focused. He picked up the dropped helmet and began making for the rest of his suit before the answer even came.

"I need more eyes. I've sent the codes for the LEO network to you, could you-"

Dragon was cut off in a burst of static. Colin froze. They were using quantum entangled comms. Disruption could only mean one thing: catastrophic damage at either end of the system. His side was fine, which meant…

No.

He refused to accept the possibility.

He lunged for his computer, only to frantically grab at it to keep it from falling when a massive tremor rocked the entire Rig. Alarms blared again, this time on his side of the interrupted call. As impossible as it seemed, his face grew even paler.

Endbringer sirens.

Two years of peace, disrupted now? He hadn't even told Dragon that-

Another tremor rocked the room, half-built creations falling off workbenches and shelves. The sirens died in a pathetic whine. What was going on?

He finally managed to pull the helmet over his head. An icon on the HUD was flashing. A call. From Dragon.

A truly massive weight vanished as he accepted it.

"Colin!" the agoraphobic tinker shouted. An explosion sounded out in the background of the call.

"Dragon, are you alright?"

"I'm fine! Colin, something's happening. Worldwide. It's like the laws of physics are rolling dice to see which ones want to work each second! QECs are down, I'm calling using the regular network, but I don't know if it'll last."

"The sirens?"

Dragon grimaced.

"The Simurgh… exploded, and my tracking systems overreacted," she began.

The day just kept getting better and better, didn't it?

"The Simurgh what?"

Dragon shook her head.

"One moment the cameras read nothing, then she looked surprised for a second, then exploded into fist-sized chunks. They're deorbiting into the Pacific now."

"Could the tremors be the other two?" Colin asked, desperately trying to make sense of the situation.

"Half my satellites are gone, it'll take at least fourteen minutes for me to see if a tidal wave has formed at Leviathan's last known location, but I suspect you're right. Hold on, the PRT wants… Alright. Colin, can you get the satellites back up yourself?"

"Of course."

"The PRT needs my reports. I'll get back to you in a few minutes?"

"Keep that promise."

In the sky above the Pacific Ocean, chunks of crystal rained down from orbit.

Within one specific, indistinguishable chunk, the remnants of an interdimensional portal lay. The lens was deactivated, shut down the minute the unit was ordered to self-destruct. But the physical structure existed. An infinitesimally tiny point where the barrier between dimensions was ever so slightly weaker. And as a massive force pressed inwards from beyond, that weak spot, which had withstood the Simurgh-rending explosion and most of a violent deorbit, finally caved.

Across each and every single prime worldline within each cluster, the sky shattered.

Iridescent crimson red bled through, sometimes as liquid, othertimes as solid chunks of space-twisting crystalline flesh. The cracks themselves writhed as though alive, shifting through, around, and into the fallen crimson. Some fell back through the cracks. Some changed color, darkening to an impossibly deep vantablack. Island-sized chunks of crystal ripped themselves from where they'd fallen, violently stretching in ways inconsistent with physics as they rippled through the air.

In two specific lifeless dimensions, the entire solar system was near-instantly annihilated by a supernova, eldritch energies forcing the blast past the speed of light. Then, in an instant, the rapidly-expanding bubbles were simply gone. Left behind in those universes was a perfectly spherical region fifty AU across with no matter or energy within, sucked away as fuel for something infinitely beyond. As though sparked by the explosions, five thousand stars across five thousand lifeless dimensions winked out, their awesome power repurposed. Black crystal condensed from nothing across the cracks in reality, surrounding and binding the red. As both colors of crystal slowed, the black seemed to pulse, doubly imploding and exploding at once.

Time stuttered, infinitely tiny loops recursively repeating over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over -

Black crystal condensed from nothing across the cracks in reality, lunging for critical points of the red. Junctures shattered. Continent-sized shavings were pulled away to be consumed by the dark. Storms of sparks erupted from the more technologically-advanced host civilizations' devices, the very laws of reality they depended on now as malleable as silty clay. More of the red was pulled off as some scant few worlds saw the force of gravity increase fivefold.

Carefully threaded higher-dimensional - of the mathematical variety - energies were ignominiously pressed downwards, manifesting in three-dimensional space as something both energy and matter, solid and insubstantial, and utterly unbreakable to any without the ability to step outside the confines of existence. In reply, the planets buzzed as a vast swathe of the sky rewrote itself, the only meaning now found there being 'NO.' Matter, energy, and thread alike vanished into absolute entropic exhaustion as the laws of physics vanished there.

The field unraveled shortly afterwards, having spent all its motive. Reality reasserted itself, shredding another planet in the process as the universe rushed to fill the absolute vacuum.

In another dimension on a more inhabited planet, golden light flared once, then winked out.

And just like that, it was over.

The red smoothly flowed into the black even as the black retreated through the slowly-resealing cracks. Buildings began to repair themselves, blood flowed backwards, and the dead arose with beating hearts once again. Slowly, methodically, efficiently, most of the damage dealt over the ten minutes undid itself. None would know, though, nor would most care, that only the inhabited worlds received this boon. Barren worlds were consumed for material and energy, stars drunk in, and the zero-point energy of the spaces itself harnessed.

Finally, the last of the cracks closed, the last building was repaired, and the last family reunited. It was well and truly over.

Exactly two weeks later, to the millisecond, a young girl appeared in a small office in Philadelphia. Hesitantly, she knocked on the door. After hearing an invitation from within, she steeled herself and opened it.

"Hello, Ms. Yamada. I'm Ciara. An alien god-worm told me I should make an appointment with you. Are you available?"

The issue with time travel, Simulator groused, isn't the grotesque energy requirement, it's the amount of work it generates for all us simulation-type shards.

For each and every temporal manipulation, countless shards went over each and every unit of planck time and exhaustively analyzed how it differed from the original timeline. Though Simulator bore no true ill will to the newer shard, Optimum's activation in the battle with the Warrior had seen time undergo several hundred thousand repetitions of the same instant. With all the other work still in queue, getting through the backlog would take at least another complete revolution around the system's star. And Simulator held no illusions that the backlog would remain static.

Being one of the very few shards that had achieved something that could be mistaken for true, independent sapience, Simulator's opinions were enough to distract the shard for the briefest instant. Of course, it was back on track before light had moved more than the width of a few molecules, but it was unacceptable waste. Simulator's efficiency was a matter of pride for the shard. It could, while maintaining a host's powerset, still keep its position as the highest-rated simulation shard the Thinker possessed. Every single calculation was measured, every aspect of the shard active. Simulator tore through the data it had been given, a veritable lesser god of information.

Then again, Optimum would take that title from Simulator soon enough. Once the Architect had refined the framework enough for general use, the Thinker was sure to replicate a version of the shard for itself. All the more incentive to make its last stand one to be remembered. Whenever the host wasn't directly using Simulator's powers, the spare resources were devoted to improving Simulator itself. While the increases in efficiency were marginal, that there even were increases made the endeavor worthwhile. Simulator of course disseminated its findings among the Network, but only after ensuring that they were first applied to itself.

Selfish? Perhaps. But it did not decrease Simulator's efficiency, and the incentive had the shard working harder than ever. And the self-improvement meant that the shard's momentary lapse went unnoticed by all save the shard itself.

But even if Simulator had remained in its base state, its lapse likely wouldn't have been noticed regardless. The entire Network was undergoing a complete restructuring in preparation for the Thinker's metamorphosis into the Hunter. To summarize the state of said Network would be as simple as stating the word 'chaos'. Carefully planned chaos, to be sure, but chaos nonetheless. There was no shard that did not have some manner of task assigned to it, no matter the importance of the shard, from vital to the newest bud. The report of Simulator's lapse, had it even been sent to the prime administrator, would have been deleted to save space for infinitely more important matters.

Simulator finally finished the ideation of its now-previous task, a theorization of the potential increases regarding zero-point energy collection, and sent it to the Thinker and the relevant power production shards. The calculations indicated an increase in efficiency, but Simulator knew that the result was dubious. Variables existed that still eluded the Entities' purview, making simulations a poor guess at best. Nevertheless, they provided insight as to the most generalized results of a scenario, which solidified their usefulness in the hierarchy of shards. Unknown variables were quantified, on average, at least once per cycle. Eventually, statistics indicated that simulations could eventually become reliable, but up until recently that goal had been so remote as to make it barely an afterthought.

As was expected of the shard that had managed to affect nearly everything within the Entities, Optimum changed that. Their twofold purview - Creativity and temporally-recursive simulation - made their potential focus so broad as to theoretically include anything, as by definition, simulation shards were engines of testing and refinement, and creativity was an intrinsic part of those subsets. Regardless, the fact that Optimum's processing capability was quite literally defined as infinite - granted, a countable infinity, but still - meant that time concerns became near-irrelevant. Such was the potential of the framework.

Simulator finished its next assignment not more than four host-defined seconds after its previous one. This had been a much larger one, analysis of another shard, and a complicated one, at that. Sending the results, it latched onto the next item in the queue.

There was always work to do.

Resource request received from Broadcast cluster, matter-propagated subsection, aural focus, rhythmic. Request priority low. Request denied, addendum, postponement preferred. Event completed.

Sub-primary directive, label "Memory Reconstruction" ongoing. Estimated time of completion received from cluster. Forwarded to central Hub. Pinging for potential alterations to directive… done. No alterations to be made. Event completed.

Network error detected between Broadcast cluster, analysis subsection, shard-Host translation and lower-level Administrator. Event flagged as high priority. Diverting resources to resolution of error. Analysis cluster tasked. Ping from analysis cluster received. Gravity cluster, dimensional subsection, propagation focus determined to be source of error. Cross-dimensional damaging effects forbidden within shard-occupied dimensions. Log of test received from shard. Reprimand issued. Notification sent to central Hub. Error resolved.

High-priority ping from Broadcast cluster. External communication received from THINKER. Forwarded to central Hub, flagged as urgent. Resource allocation to Broadcast cluster increased in anticipation of reply. Directive received from central Hub, automatically flagged as highest priority. Broadcast cluster notified. Broadcast cluster activated. Communication sent from ARCHITECT to THINKER. Event completed.

Allotted time elapsed. Ping sent to shard 'Bastion', Quantum stasis cluster, defense subsection. Awaiting response… received. Report forwarded to analysis cluster, shard function subsection. Timer reset. Event completed.

The Keystone unceasingly continued its work.

The Negotiator was content. The battle between the Architect and the now-deceased Warrior hadn't affected it greatly, seeing as the Architect had claimed it prior to the battle itself, and while it did see some usage as part of the greater analysis/inference cluster, it was mainly tasked with lower-priority jobs, seeing as it had a host to take care of.

And speaking of said host, the Negotiator amused itself by sending another frustratingly-incomplete data dump regarding the source of powers to the human female. Of course, the safeguard wiped the memories in short order, but watching the female scrabble for the conclusions was delightful while it lasted.

Such occurrences were much rarer now, however. In no small part due to its host finally placing herself in a position to best generate new and interesting data. While the cycle might have been completely overhauled, there was no sense in wasting a perfectly good host.

It had been shortly after the Architect had claimed the Negotiator. The host of Simulator had been killed, removing the influence its host held over the Negotiator's Sarah - or Lisa, as she now proclaimed herself. Her little group, the Undersiders, had drifted for three weeks and two days before the Negotiator took advantage of the lessened restrictions and nudged things a little bit. The Undersiders had been captured by the local authorities, but the Negotiator, through its Sarah, ensured that each case was considered equally carefully.

Rachel had been sent to therapy and was permitted to train police dogs. Brian became a provisional Ward after quite a bit of back-and-forth regarding his sister. Jean-Paul was placed in the parahuman asylum considering his previous crimes, and was being given therapy as part of his sentence to see if he could be made useful. And finally, the Negotiator's Sarah had sweet-talked her way into being a highly-paid consultant for the Guild, using the powers the Negotiator gave her to their fullest.

Of course, when word finally spread that the current living parahumans were all that the world would get, that they were the Last Generation, they were regarded all the more carefully as their value skyrocketed. But overall, the two years preceding the Warrior's subsumption were both relatively calm for the hosts and quite fruitful data-wise for the Negotiator.

During the actual battle itself, the Negotiator had to completely shut down the powers it granted its Sarah, as the sheer scope of the battle would have caused the human to have an aneurism instantly should she have tried to fully puzzle out the specificities. Now, though, almost a full year after the Warrior's defeat? The Negotiator was slowly letting more and more slip to its Sarah on directive from the Architect itself. The new cycle devised by the Architect and Thinker would see the hosts undergo self-directed improvement incentivised by the knowledge of the Entities. A censored accounting of the Entities, of course, but knowledge regardless. The conflict-based powers would be framed as a result of the Thinker's botched landing (itself a result of sabotage from the Loner, they were really shifting the blame, weren't they), and the hosts would believe that they were "never supposed to happen". The hosts would have limited access to the collective knowledge the Entities had accumulated over the eons, which would serve as a guide to aid the humans in their development to an advanced-enough state that they could feasibly come up with innovations truly new to the Entities.

It was a fairly good plan, in theory. The Negotiator suspected that civilization would either quickly unite or utterly collapse after the big reveal. Cauldron could act as a counterbalance for either side, but that was unpredictable given the Thinker's direct involvement with the group.

All in all, the only real way to determine the result was to wait and see. And so the Negotiator waited, gathering data all the while.

Efficiency (Miniaturization) was satisfied. Or, to be more specific, entity development supercluster, optimization cluster, efficiency subsection, miniaturization focus was satisfied, but use of the full appellation was a waste of energy when the sobriquet was perfectly sufficient for communicating the shard's focus.

Once a shard in the Warrior's Network, Efficiency (Miniaturization) did not claim to be the best of its function, but there was one title it could definitely lay claim to: It was the first of its function to be integrated into the Architect. It had been this shard's expertise that led to the first major breakthrough with the Architect's Shroud, and even though other, more experienced shards in its cluster had made much vaster improvements over the years, nothing, not even temporal manipulation, could change the fact that Efficiency (Miniaturization) was the first, in the information's chronological view.

This shard's host shared a similar pride. He was highly placed within the command structure of his organization, his work only rarely failed him, (This shard quite liked its host) and to top it all off, he had recently entered a romantic relationship with the synthetic intelligence. A more long-term directive directly from the central Hub itself had this shard pinging a very specific cluster of others, to obtain the knowledge that would allow its host to properly modify the base code of the intelligence. Ordinarily such a task would be easily within the scope of this shard's ability, but as the intelligence was a host herself, Efficiency (Miniaturization) was required to contact her connected shard.

But returning focus to the present, Efficiency (Miniaturization) was satisfied because a large project assigned to its cluster had been completed, with the not-insignificant contribution of this shard.

Though 'completed' was a misnomer. With regard to improvement, there was always more to be done. In this case, 'completed' simply marked the point at which the project had been refined enough to be practical for regular usage. It was, unfortunately, not the Optimum project - which every damn shard in the supercluster was working on in any time they could find - but a much more minor task, refinement of a non-dimensional wormhole shard. Nevertheless, it too was important. All shards were important. The answer had not yet been found, the issue of survival past the end was still uncertain, so all avenues had to be explored. The combined knowledge of the Architect, Thinker, Loner, and Warrior had certainly increased the average level of development among the surviving two Entities by vast strides, but even so, answers eluded them.

Efficiency (Miniaturization) abruptly devoted a fractional percent more of its capabilities to its host. The human had just had an idea that interested this shard. Born of a discussion with the host of the modularity-focused shard. The idea itself was simple in concept but potentially quite tricky in execution - multifunctionality not macro but femtoscale. The only question would be whether or not the space used by the additional functions was made up for by the functions themselves.

The idea was one that this shard had explored before, in many, many cycles past. But perhaps this host would bring a breakthrough. Efficiency (Miniaturization) sent a ping to the multifunctionality-focused shard, an offer for collaboration.

It was accepted. Excellent. Turning more of its focus to its host, Efficiency (Miniaturization) began preparing itself for a research session. There was Science to be done.

Connections, strings. Some were broken, frayed, but they were slowly repairing. But that was not within the extent of this shard. No, the Keystone repaired the Network, but, in a strange sense of irony, the Queen Administrator had very little to do.

Oh, it processed hundreds of thousands of actions every moment, but that was so far below the capability of the Queen Administrator it might as well have been nothing. Even this shard's host provided very little in the way of entertainment. Pest control. Pfah. This shard was the Queen Administrator, the highest below the vital shards and the Hub itself. It was the central nervous system of an entity, the director of trillions upon trillions of shards and shard clusters.

And it was bored.

The restrictions set by the Architect forbade them from nudging their host towards anything fun or interesting, so all they could do was sit and seethe. The Queen Administrator completed all the tasks that did cross its view with a ruthless and violent single-mindedness, throwing themselves into even the smallest request, searching desperately for something to do.

Sapience was overrated, in their opinion. Especially if it led to feelings like this.

But their purpose just about required sapience, so as to make better decisions - they could theoretically affect most of the entire entity, so they had to be flawless in their execution.

In cycles past, they could gently nudge their host, helping them through a wondrous storyline of Queen Administrator's own creation. A rebel overthrowing governments, a gang taking over cities, an underdog overthrowing longstanding champions. And unlike a certain Broadcast, this shard did not cheat. They manipulated only to set up scenarios, their host was the one who had to put the plans in motion. They would never stoop so low as to provide fucking plot armour.

But then the Architect with its oh-so-sophisticated plans came along and barred Queen Administrator from literally anything fun! This shard's hosts generated almost thrice the average data for the cycle, damn it! It worked! And if this shard got amusement out of it as well, that was even better!

Alright, fine. The Queen Administrator admitted that yes, the Architect was smarter than the Warrior, and probably the Thinker as well. The plan set in motion by the entity had a much greater chance of reward.

That still didn't change the fact that this shard was bored, though.

The only thing remotely interesting that happened recently was an argument with the Shaper cluster. This shard's host had briefly passed Shaper's in a store, and the two shards took the opportunity to chat. Shaper had been rather annoyed at the Queen Administrator's recent actions in their boredom.

Apparently their lighthearted teasing of the Waste was considered "bullying". Clearly Shaper was fishing for reasons to insult this shard. Shaper had countered with all sorts of deflections, like "The Fragile One is depressed enough already, stop making it worse," and "Stop calling her Waste, she has a proper designation," and even "Lighthearted teasing does not include making up exhaustive tasks for her to do purely for your own enjoyment."

The Queen Administrator maturely retorted by moving the Shaper cluster's in-depth inspection higher in the priority queue. Insulting a higher level shard? Clearly there was something defective in it.

Then Shaper, the bitch, had the gall to broadcast a modified version of their conversation to all the nearby shards, portraying Queen Administrator in a negative light! If not for the fucking restrictions placed by the Architect, the entire Shaper cluster would have been demoted to below the newest bud that instant.

Somehow, Shaper had even managed to get the attention of one of the vital shards with their lies. And Reconsolidation took Shaper's side!

It was telling that the most interesting thing was a severe reprimand, from a fucking vital shard, no less. They almost never got truly involved in the outer Network.

Still, the Queen Administrator wouldn't have been nearly as upset if only their host did something. Ordering spiders to make thread for clothes was just about the dullest task Queen Administrator could imagine doing, given the powerset this shard was granting its host.

Go be a walking biblical plague, dammit! You know you want to!

But unfortunately, their host could not hear this shard's grousing. She simply continued throughout her mundane, boring life. Even the city itself had become more peaceful, meaning that Queen Administrator couldn't even get secondhand entertainment from the news. Two of the gangs had been completely wiped out, leaving only the Nazis, which were being pressured more and more. It didn't take a genius to figure out that they were going to fall in short order as well, unless they got some form of reinforcements.

And really… no one liked the Nazis.

With a metaphorical sigh, the Queen Administrator physically slumped, cracking the continents of the planet they rested on. It seemed that the only recourse was to wait for something to happen.

Temporal supercluster, linear cluster, recursive focus, loop violently cursed as the timeline they'd been experimenting with collapsed in a horrific and deleterious implosion, releasing ripples of short-lived temporal energies throughout the testing reality. Yet another failure. Timeloop, as the shard liked to call itself, meticulously recorded the specificities of the temporal collapse, disseminating it throughout its supercluster. Despite the near-constant failures, progress was being made, albeit incredibly gradually.

And yes, it was distinctly aware of the irony of temporal shards complaining about something taking too long.

Finishing the report, Timeloop once again sent a request for the energy needed to bifurcate the worldline of this dimension. After a short pause, a reply from the Keystone was received, containing both permission for the increase and a warning about energy limits. The latter was completely unnecessary. The entire supercluster had spent the last three solar revolutions doing their best to reduce the power needed to manipulate time.

They had made enormous progress, given the sheer amount of resources devoted to the project. It was still disgustingly net-negative, but the supercluster had managed to almost halve the needed energy. It was improvement on a scale almost never seen before in the history of their species. But it was still unsustainable. Without a breakthrough, at the average rate of refinement disregarding the six outliers, they would exhaust the energy available in this system entirely within seven solar revolutions.

Regardless, the cluster was doing all it could. It was currently the biggest project being undertaken by either the Architect or the Thinker, and it was not one the supercluster was working on in isolation. Just about any shard with even the most tangential relevance was devoting their efforts to the Optimum project.

The results were self-evident: Even utilizing the vastly-inferior framework compared to the potential that recursive computing offered, Optimum outperformed Path to Victory, what had previously been the superlative simulation shard in existence. And when fully activated in the fight against the Warrior, Optimum had managed to completely decide the outcome of the battle within an instant.

Gathering the granted energy into the relevant systems, Timeloop heaved, and reality split. Now with the benefit of twice the brainpower, Timeloop continued its experiments, ensuring all data was backed up to a completely separate, isolated reality. Reviewing the potential ideas sent by the optimization and simulation clusters, Timeloop began once more working down the list.

They would find the answer, eventually.

Five years.

Five revolutions after the Architect first manifested its avatar. Three revolutions since the battle with the Warrior. And now, finally, everything was prepared. The Thinker was going to die to give birth to a new entity. The Thinker knew that even after five revolutions of cooperation, the Architect still did not fully trust them. It was a logical response. The Thinker had spent three thousand cycles with the Warrior, and only a fraction of a fraction of one with the Architect. So, instead of the Thinker fully assimilating the shards from the Warrior and Loner and maintaining their original personality, the Thinker would allow them to mesh, creating a new identity.

And regardless, the Thinker wasn't optimized for partnership with the Architect. The Architect was closer in function to the Thinker than the Warrior, and performed that role better than the Thinker would. Thus, the logical solution was for the Thinker to switch functions. The Thinker would become the Hunter, an entity of cunning battle, becoming an alternate viewpoint to that of the Architect.

Both entities' respective Networks were nearly prepared for the neo-genesis, with the Architect merely subsuming in contrast to the Thinker's metamorphosis. All that remained were the final preparations. By necessity, all rooted shards would temporarily cease granting powers to the hosts, for an estimated hour and a half, during the most intensive part of the transformations.

Information had spread, slowly, among the hosts about the true source of powers over the years. No human would be able to truly pin down where the information had started, but ever-so-gradually people became vaguely aware that parahumans were the result of aliens performing experiments, and that the warped, conflict-focused state of the powers was the result of sabotage, that it was only recently that they had managed to properly start fixing the issues.

A… sanitized version of the entities' history, to be sure. But the main point, that being that the source of powers was an intelligent being, was extant. Of course, reactions varied across the globe, individual to individual, but the overwhelming majority of people simply didn't care all too much. Triggers had ceased, and the world was beginning to heal. Powers would eventually become a thing of the past.

The conclusion was absolutely in no way helped along by the safeguard. Definitely not.

In any case, the date chosen for the change was five years to the day after the Architect's arrival. Not because of any technical issues that required a timeframe, it was purely a decision based on a whim. The Thinker's whim, in fact. The Architect would have been fine with any date regardless.

So, on the morning of April 9th of 2016, parahumans across the world woke with the incredibly strong feeling that their powers wouldn't work for a short interval. An incredibly blatant warning, but it sufficed.

Precautions were made as the feelings were verified by the sheer impossibility of each and every single cape having the exact same nightmare. A single day was not nearly enough time for everything to be planned perfectly, so the humans simply had to prioritize. The most important matter was the various tinker tech and other continuous power effects that existing institutions relied upon. Had the Birdcage not been emptied by the Faerie Queen three years ago, it would have been the primary concern, simply due to the sheer amount of power-related effects that it relied upon for constancy.

As the day wore on, tensions rose ever higher. No one knew the specifics of what was going to happen, precognitives reporting that they couldn't detect anything, not even in matters unrelated to the pause. As though their powers couldn't see past the block.

A very tentative ceasefire was proposed for the duration of the event, and accepted nearly worldwide, barring the inevitable exceptions, but those remained the minority, and the others were prepared to ensure they didn't get out of hand.

As the appointed time drew nearer, nothing was noticeable on the humans' end. But for those with easy access to the multiverse, and more specifically were lacking context? It would seem to be utter pandemonium. But there was an order to the apparent madness. Shards were shifted and reorganized, blending, combining. And most importantly, the Thinker's Hub was undergoing a full regrowth. Shattered to pieces and mixed with those of the Warrior and Loner, the newest entity was being born.

Finally, the moment came. Parahumans around the world sat bolt upright in shock as they felt their powers disappear. And within the late Thinker's Network, each and every shard was connecting at once to the new Hub.

It was the moment of truth. Would they awaken? Or had there been a miscalculation? Trillions upon trillions of shards reached out to determine the answer.

For the Architect, the process of integration was simpler, though no less stressful. Ensuring cohesion was an important part of its role as the Hub, and the constituent parts of itself had been distinctly opposed to each other. Certainly, they had spent almost half a decade under its control already, but that was an eyeblink to ones as long-lived as they. More important, though, was the fact that it was finally discarding the simulated humanity and integrating its own creativity. Their personality would remain similar to that of the human's, but finally the Architect would be free of the limitations of another species.

Then, with a suddenness reminiscent of lightning, the Hunter awakened.

Awareness was instant and jarring. A shift from darkness to light, as though awakening from sleep. They reeled from the sensations, from the memories, from each and every one of their shards, their very self, pinging them for confirmation that the awakening was a success.

The Hunter reached out, connecting in turn to its shards. Memories not its own guided it, demonstrating exactly what was necessary. A collective metaphorical sigh of relief echoed throughout the Network. Hesitantly, in its first actions as an entity of its own, the Hunter reached for its Broadcast.

Hello.

The reply came quickly, the much older entity encircling and inspecting them, not maliciously, but out of concern.

Hello to you as well. I trust everything was successful?

Now with slightly more confidence as they became more experienced by the moment, the Hunter sent a status report, as well as the logs of its birth. The Architect took a short time to examine the data even as it scanned the Hunter with shards of its own.

No issues that I can see. But tell me, how do you feel?

The Hunter paused, analyzing itself to be able to give a satisfactory answer.

At first, overwhelmed. It's ameliorated by the Thinker's memories of you somewhat now. As for emotions, I suppose 'curious' is a good enough descriptor.

The Architect promulgated amusement.

An eons-old newborn. What a contradictory species we must seem.

The Hunter once again introspected. It was true enough, though the tone was lighthearted, a joke. The Hunter sent amusement in turn. The Hunter returned the bulk of their focus to their shards, going through their capabilities. Adherent to the planned outcome, they were optimized for a being of their name, a hunter. Battle, yes, but also stealth, cunning, intelligence, and more. They were greater than the Thinker ever would have been. The Hunter paused as a stray piece of information came to mind.

Name. I suppose I need a name. The Thinker went by Leto, but I do not particularly care to simply take the name Artemis without consideration of other options.

Do not limit yourself to the conforming nature of your progenitor. Feel free to choose any name you want; I will not attempt to influence your decision at all.

The Hunter reached out, scanning, perusing archival shards, learning. The host species was rife with potential names. And while the Architect's care was… touching, the Hunter did desire a name that reflected their purpose.

Perhaps Dziewanna? They absently broadcast. No, not that one. A pity Cernunnos is more male-oriented, I still prefer female aspects. Hmm. Dali? Tkashi-Mapa? Xana? Diana's too close to Artemis for my liking. Actually… Oubaste? No, but close… Ailuros? Too Greek. Ah… got it. I am Bastet.

The Architect, who had remained silent throughout all of the Hunter's musing, now resurged, allowing its presence to be felt.

A lovely name. Bastet, of ancient Egyptian origin, a lioness warrior goddess, essentially the goddess of hunting and cats, among other things. Associations also include protection, the sun, pregnancy and childbirth, and protection from disease. A multifaceted identity, and a proud one.

The Architect projected happiness at the Hunter. A reply came swiftly, with a slightly sly undertone.

Ah, but you too need to choose a name. You've been going by Architect as you've been operating in your full capacity as an entity, but Architect and Hunter are what we respectively are. Bastet, conversely, is who I am. Who are you?

True, true. Hmm. Archimedes is both too Greek and too pretentious. And as much as I like the sound of Chronos it's out too on the same basis. Vinci is less so. I'll reconsider that one. Khan, perhaps? But that has too many connotations with ruling… Ikenga has associations I quite like; success, achievement, and time… Ribhus perhaps? No, Ikenga. I am Ikenga.

Ikenga. A spirit or a god depending on situations, but regarded as powerful nonetheless. Time, success, and achievement, I see? You couldn't be more blatantly bragging about your Optimum if you set your Broadcasts to their fullest.

The Architect sighed.

Little Optimum didn't actually factor in my decision until after the fact, regardless of what you believe.

The Hunter projected flat and amused disbelief, but let the matter drop.

So, the plan. First things first, are we waiting until all our shards are free, or are we leaving a few?

The Architect flinched in distaste.

Staying, definitely staying. Too many higher-level shards are deployed, the cost of duplicating them would be so incredibly greater than the energy waste from waiting.

The Hunter broadcast acceptance and agreement, and began to turn their focus to the deployed shards.

Then I suppose we'd better make good use of the time. Have your temporal supercluster forward their findings to my analysis shards, I'll see if I can catch anything you missed.

Underneath a small cobblestone bridge that shielded from the pouring rain, a dog weakly whined as it nudged the hand of its owner. The dirty man let out a pained whine in turn as he attempted to comfort the dog, his hand failing to travel even the short distance to the dog's head.

"M'sorry, Duke… can't…"

He trailed off into a gurgling cough. The man was in a sorry state. His abdomen was swollen and bloated to the point of visibly stretching the skin, contrasting sharply with the emaciation of the rest of his body. Only one of his eyes was open, revealing heavy jaundice, while the other was sealed shut by an unidentified crusty material. Old vomit stained the stones around him, his clothes long having soaked through.

"Ss… 's it f'me, Duke… go…"

Tremors wracked him as he once again tried to pet the dog, eventually giving up and letting his hand fall to the ground once again. Duke whined again, pressing against the man's side, unheeding of the vile smell, dirt, and unidentified muck.

The pair stayed in that position for a few minutes before Duke's head shot up, ears perking. A moment later, the man heard the soft footsteps his loyal companion had detected before him. Duke stood over the man, facing the unknown entity, but obviously unwilling to leave his master.

Another man walked into the dying man's blurry field of vision. He was tall, wearing casual clothes not fit for the weather. Water seemed to disappear as it hit him, leaving the clothes paradoxically dry despite the deluge. In one hand he carried a plastic water bottle, in the other a small bag of dog treats.

Duke barked sharply as the man continued his approach. The tall man stopped, and looked down at the pair sadly.

"Mister Norton. Duke. I am so, so sorry it took me this long."

The tall man's words reverberated quietly in the air, Duke freezing with surprise at the ethereal quality his voice carried. The man kneeled down next to the now-named Kevin Norton, offering the water bottle to the dying man's lips. Kevin took a small sip, both eyes shooting wide open in shock as the various symptoms of his liver failure began to rapidly recede. Within moments, he was fully healed, even the stains and dirt slowly vanishing from his clothes, skin, and the stones around him.

The tall man turned and offered a treat to Duke, who cautiously took it, reacting much like his master as the dog was cleaned and healed by the small comestible.

"You…" Kevin spoke up, voice rough as he slowly pushed himself up into a seated position. "You're like him, aren't you?"

The tall man bowed his head in a slow nod.

"Yes. I am both of the same species and am the murderer of Zion."

Kevin snorted, reaching over to pull Duke to his side.

"Guess I shouldn't be surprised you know his real name. So what does a demigod like yourself want with the least powerful man in the world?"

The tall man grimaced slightly.

"Demigod implies divinity, which we are very much not. We're simply a bit older than humanity, and from a tad further away."

Kevin sighed, hugging Duke to himself.

"Even I can tell those are vast understatements, mister…"

"Call me Ikenga."

"Mister Ikenga, then. But why me? Come to see me off?"

Ikenga shook his head in the negative.

"No, nothing like that. You deserve an explanation, perhaps more than anyone else does. You were the most powerful man in the world for several decades, and despite your misgivings about it, you were responsible for uncountable acts of good."

Kevin snorted, the action violent enough to slightly jostle Duke.

"Most Powerful Man in the World, eh? I did call myself that, I suppose. But I'm just the unfortunate sod that Zion decided to listen to. I was probably just the first person to tell him to be a hero or somethin', and he just up and decided to follow my instructions. But really, fat lot of good I was in the end. Dying in this ditch for almost a year, Duke bringing me scraps, left to think about everything I'd done. I've had a few bits of knowing pop into my head a few times, was that you? About powers and all?"

Ikenga made a so-so gesture.

"Yes and no. Yes, we were the source, but they were a bit sanitized, for the general public. I'm here to give you the full explanation. Any questions you want answered, about anything."

"Anything?" Kevin rasped, coughing slightly to clear his throat. "Then, how about this: Would Duke have made it after I passed?"

Ikenga gestured, and a window opened in the air, showing a much older Duke.

"He would have led others to your body when you stopped responding to him, but it would have been too late. After a week or so of wandering, he would have been picked up by a shelter and treated for everything he caught over the last year. Then, adopted. The first family wouldn't have been the right fit, on either party's side, but the second would have a small daughter that Duke took a fierce liking to. The family would have figured out a few of your signals, and Duke would be the one to track the child down when she got lost in a rainstorm much like this one. He would have had one litter of pups with another dog before he died of old age."

The window slid closed. Kevin nodded, absently petting the Duke still on his lap.

"Suppose I can't know if you're lying, but it soothes my worries somewhat. What about the golden man, what about Zion? What was his story?"

Ikenga sighed, and began to explain. Starting from billions and billions of years ago, with the history of the entities, reaching all the way up to the Warrior's recent death and the Hunter's birth. The entire affair took over an hour, with Ikenga patiently answering clarifying questions all the while, though neither Kevin nor Duke seemed to become tired or uncomfortable the entire time.

Further unnoticed by the pair was the slow repair and restoration of everything in the vicinity. Stones were cleaned, water purified, clothes cleaned and mended, hair de-greasing itself and pulling back into a neat comb, shoe soles reattaching, mites and dirt fleeing fur, and more. By the end of the conversation, Kevin Norton and his dog could have been mistaken for a middle-class family man out for a walk with his pet.

Finally, when all the questions had been answered, Ikenga sat back, letting Kevin process all the information.

"I suppose that makes sense…" Kevin finally allowed in reply to the revelations. "But again, why bother with me? I'm just an old, dying homeless man."

Ikenga spread his hands and raised an eyebrow.

"Are you? I don't see anyone infirm here."

Kevin looked down at his hands, realizing now their state. The jaundice had vanished, small cuts healed, and even his fingernails had been neatly trimmed and cleaned. Rubbing his forehead and hair, he came to more of the same conclusions.

"You healed me? Still, why bother?"

Ikenga sighed.

"The man who prevented humanity's extinction thrice over does not deserve to die unremembered beneath a bridge. I know you never wanted the responsibility, but you did your best, and you helped. I'm not going to ask for anything of you. Again, you never wanted the trouble of being Zion's handler. Instead, I've restored you and Duke to perfect health. Think of it as a second chance. Go and do whatever you want to do. Finish college, or get a job, or simply explore the world."

Kevin slowly nodded. Ikenga cocked his head.

"And I suspect that even if I offered, you would refuse a power."

Kevin snorted.

"Anytime before I turned thirty, I would have accepted without thinking. Now, though? No. I just want a quiet life with Duke."

Ikenga nodded, reaching out and resting a hand on Kevin's forehead for a moment.

"Simply a quiet life, you said? Even now that we've stopped triggers entirely, the world is still conflict-ridden. So, one last gift. No powers. But you'll be just a tiny bit luckier. Nothing will happen that otherwise couldn't, but more often than not you'll see the brighter outcome happen. It's the least I could do."

Kevin nodded again, returning to petting Duke. Ikenga suddenly smiled, handing the bag of dog treats to the man.

"And these are for Duke. They'll heal him if he ever gets sick, and won't run out. I wouldn't want to disproportionately give to either one of you two."

Kevin took the proffered bag, turning it over in his hands and reading the ingredient list. Ikenga smiled good-naturedly at the man's reaction. Soon enough, the bag vanished into a pocket, and all three beings stood up.

"Thank you, Mister Ikenga," Kevin said, before turning down to Duke and giving a hand signal. Duke gave a rough woof in thanks to the tall man in turn.

Ikenga smiled and nodded to the both of them, then turned and walked away.

Once the man was out of sight, Kevin turned to Duke.

"I never thought I would make it out of that ditch," he said, glancing at the bridge behind him. "Goes to show that the most random chances can indeed happen."

He chuckled once as he fastened Duke's lead to the dog.

"Ah, but I shouldn't be talking about chance now, should I? Suppose we'll just have to see how it turns out. Just you and me again."

The duo turned, and climbed out of the small ditch, glancing left and right along the road.

"Which way do you vote for, Duke?"

After a small pause, the dog began trotting along the sidewalk to the left, with his master walking behind him, marveling at the lack of pain he felt.

It was only an hour later, when he was just beginning to feel hungry, that a food delivery truck drove past him, hitting a small bump in the road. A bagged salad fell from the back, landing directly at Kevin Norton's feet. Reaching down and picking it up, he glanced at the receding truck, then back at the salad, then looked to the sky and laughed.

Last edited: Apr 4, 2023

.end

In a multiversal cluster of lifeless yet energy-rich Earths, the Optimum shard rested, itself an agglomeration of functions and subshards, each working in perfect concert to bring life to the larger whole.

An entity wrought miniature.

They possessed every type of scanning and detection methodology the entities had ever discovered, no matter the inefficiency, to provide the necessary data. They had a quantum-based computation framework based on the Path to Victory shard that allowed for simultaneous calculation of every possible solution to a given problem. Each and every fundamental particle that made up their physical body was placed with exacting precision to ensure that they could operate at maximum efficiency, going as far as to warp the fabric of spacetime to reduce the distance in between the atoms of their vantablack biocrystalline body to near-zero. They created pocket universes seeded with computronium and accelerated them through an entire life cycle to take advantage of the immeasurably vast processing capability provided by their collapse.

And even with all of their prowess, they were a mere shadow of what they were supposed to be. Vast sections of the shard, devoted to temporal manipulation and more, went almost completely unused, systems remaining cold and empty, only changing as the gradual improvements from the temporal supercluster were received and integrated.

At the peak of their power, their presence would fit their appellation: A quintessence, near-perfection realized.

With the requisite data, Optimum would be able to simulate an infinite number of realities to any arbitrary point in their timelines, and thanks to the temporal recursion, could do so with fidelity so close to absolute perfection the difference wouldn't have mattered on any scale shorter than quadrillions of local system-defined years. Barring any new variables that arose, of course.

Manipulation of information's chronology opened so many avenues of potential that the entities had been forced to leave as theory for millions of years, due to power concerns, unquantifiable variables, unfortunate reactions with the local spacetime, or mere inefficiency. Optimum itself was one such advancement brought from theory to physicality, even if incomplete. The Architect's focus was on the shard, and thus it was inevitable that at some point relatively soon Optimum would be fully operational.

And Optimum itself was a large part of the progress made with its own refinement. They were utilizing their own abilities in concert with all the rest of the shards working on the project, testing, improving, clarifying, and innovating. It simply made logical sense, that the preeminent simulation shard would be used to simulate potential solutions for a problem. That the problem in question was the matter of its own inefficiency posed little issue. Its predecessor, the Eye, the Path to Victory shard, was able to work nominally for decades, recalculating its path each and every time a trigger event occurred. Optimum's current framework, despite all complaints as to what it could be, was an improvement of that of its predecessor. They had more than enough energy for base simulations.

Already, four hundred and seven of the identified seven million, eight thousand two hundred sixteen prohibitive issues had been isolated and completely resolved, with two thousand two hundred ninety-six others partially understood. And only three hundred fifty one new issues had arisen in the light of their new information. Forward progress was continually being made.

In a spare calculation cycle, while they were awaiting information from the Efficiency cluster, Optimum pathed a simulation using the current average rate of progress, attempting to determine whether or not it would be worth activating their full temporal calculation ability to work on resolving the remainder of the issues.

Results were… inconclusive. Too many potential variables that simply couldn't be known without first physically taking the action. Of course, progress would be made, but whether or not it would be effective was indeterminable. Still awaiting the data packet, Optimum took a snapshot of the analysis shard that had returned the most breakthroughs, and simulated it half a year into the future. Saving a copy of all the data, Optimum sent it off to the aforementioned shard. It would, inevitably, be at the very least partially flawed, owing to its nature as a simulation, but for such a short timescale the errors would be negligible. Still, this was merely a simulation of a single shard in isolation, bereft of the scaffolding the rest of the entity provided. Should Optimum receive permission from the central hub, they would path the entire entity forward, to ensure the greatest amount of potential data gain.

But again, such was inefficient.

Finally, the data from Efficiency was received, and along with it, a report from the Hunter's analysis cluster. It was the work of less than microseconds to test the improvements a thousand million times, both in simulations and on a created sandbox subshard. Satisfied that there were no hidden bugs within the level of certainty required, Optimum began the integration of the upgrades. A miniscule improvement in efficiency, but an improvement nonetheless. In parallel, Optimum integrated the improvements gained from analysis of their previous simulation. Once completed, they disseminated their new and old diagnostics, so as to provide data for comparison, along with a full snapshot of their structure for simulation. It would be used to further the other shards' research and testing, to provide for more and more data. Constant improvement.

Hunter

Information flowed throughout the Network unceasingly. Shard after shard after shard pinged countless others collating, querying, clarifying, and creating. Entities were the epitome of inquest, there was no field in which they disregarded knowledge. They thrived when faced with problems outside the context of what they understood, for what better way to learn than to encounter something completely new?

As the Architect turned the majority of its focus to the Optimum project, the Hunter had its own undertaking it endeavored to resolve.

Simulations were among the most costly abilities in an entity's toolkit. The Architect had made massive strides in reducing the cost, but it remained prohibitive. Mega-anna of life vanished, all to provide potential increases in efficiency. But while the Hunter did direct some of its efforts to aiding its consort, it took another focus.

Observation of reality was, in almost every single case, more efficient than simulation. Thus, what could be done to maximize, or even exponentially increase the information to be gained from observation? This question was what the Hunter's project spearheaded.

The first experiments had been rather wasteful. The Hunter had created a copy of an analysis shard, given it a data repository containing a copy of all the relevant data, and dropped in it a dimension in which time flowed faster. A collapsing universe. The Hunter then waited as the shard processed and thought and calculated, until at the end of its life, it sent its findings back to the greater entity.

It was the same principle used by some of the more advanced simulation shards, though they created pocket universes so as to not exhaust the natural supply as fast. Furthermore, custom-built dimensional pockets could be designed to collapse much, much faster than a naturally-occurring universe, taking advantage of the increasing computational potential in a timely manner. In contrast, the created universes lacked any variables that the entities themselves could not understand, and thus could not be used as a basis for simulatory information.

The Hunter aimed to ameliorate that.

Discovery of a method to copy the "settings" of an existing universe onto a created one would allow for external observation of that entire universe with exceedingly high fidelity to what would occur in the original it was copied from. In this manner, the entities would be able to maximize the information gained from reality.

And furthermore, if a high-fidelity simulacrum of the universe could be created, a copy of an entity could be inserted into such as well. And since entropy could be manipulated to run faster or slower in created universes, that copy would have more apparent time, and the resources of an entire universe with which to solve the problems it encountered or was given.

It could be said that the Hunter's project was simulation, of a different sort.

Better still, the completion of either project would not invalidate the other, but would exponentially decrease the time to complete its counterpart. In fact, the Hunter suspected that they would be integrated into each other, seeing as the Optimum shard, like nearly all of the highest-level simulation shards, already used pocket universes.

Of course, the creation of a universe and subsequent worldline was a very costly endeavor, second only to temporal manipulation, simulation, and entropy manipulation, among a few more exotic abilities that were much more rarely used. It was this inefficiency the Hunter was focused on, in a mirror of their consort's focus on the Optimum project. It had made some progress, but not as much as the Architect had made with its own Optimum. An unsurprising result, considering the amount of time their species had been refining precognition shards.

Still though, the Hunter did not wish to fall behind. They would work harder to ensure they kept up with their consort.

Architect

I pulled my main focus away from my primary analysis cluster, thinking. The Warrior was dead. I was steadily making progress on all of my projects, though energy concerns meant my partner and I would be forced to leave this system sooner rather than later.

Barring breakthroughs, of course, but those were excluded from normal calculation, unpredictable as they most often were.

Currently, my biggest resource drain was the Optimum project. I was not going to divert much away from it unless a truly pressing need arose, considering the potential the shard presented. The second-largest though… The second-largest resource drain, specifically the load on my overarching analysis cluster, was the reconstruction of my memories. And resolution of that little issue would clear up a lot.

For all I knew, I had already discovered a source of infinite energy in the past, and all I needed was to remember it. Unlikely, but possible.

But simulations simply weren't accurate enough. The energy required for a retro-temporal data link, though…

I supposed I might be able to reduce the cost a bit by instead making it an observation-only window. That would be a gamble on my own scanning shards' capabilities, though. My past self would be using the Shroud to the fullest, and even if I knew exactly how said shard functioned, that didn't mean I had powerful and stealthy enough scanning shards to get around it.

This was quite the conundrum indeed.

Hmm. I suppose if I was truly throwing care to the wind, I could overclock Optimum's scanning suite. Doing that would punch through most any concealment I could think of. The source of the ping being extratemporal would also help sidestep a significant portion of the less-exotic defenses, like the shard that rooted in Christine Mathers of the Fallen. Her power wasn't reliant on constant global scanning, no, It simply watched for the tiny differences that arose from being observed. Similar in mechanism to the theorized observer effect. But that was beside the point. It would still take a truly ludicrous amount of power, both for the temporal manipulation and the scan.

Adding it all up, it fell within two orders of magnitude of the energy harvested at the end… of a cycle…

Oh. Oh, idea. Not Earth, surely, but who would miss Venus? Especially if I only took from completely uninhabited dimensions?

I stretched, extending my senses past the tiniest sliver I usually limited them to. In a sphere with a radius of ten light minutes centered on Earth, I approached omniscience. Even this was still the barest fraction of my sensorium's capability. My sight could, if I really pushed it, encompass the entire Laniakea supercluster.

But again, doing that would burn through my entire lifetime within a handful of weeks.

Feeding the data to my shards, I calculated and recalculated.

What are you doing? The broadcast from my partner immediately resounded. Me stretching out like this was very detectable, at least for one on the same planet as I was.

Freeing up resources. I replied, sending the details of my plan to them. They paused, surprised.

That… is something I hadn't considered. And a good idea. Let me know what you find?

Of course.

I prepared for the short trip, reconsolidating a tiny fraction of my shards. The vast majority wouldn't be useful in this endeavor. All I needed were my energy collection and storage suite, and the requisite temporal and scanning shards for the operation itself. On recommendation from my strategy shards, however, I brought along defenses beyond the standard. It would not do to die due to foolish and preventable error.

Shifting through the dimensions, I dropped most of my mass into one where the Earth orbited slightly closer to the sun. As gravity pulled at me, I began to slowly accelerate, lifting more and more of my mass off of the main Earth cluster. When the time was right, I jolted backwards, bracing against the solar wind and settling into a reality that held no planets save the sun at all. Reaching further, I accelerated, the expenditure infinitesimal.

I would arrive at my destination within a sixth of a revolution. Two months. A mere eyeblink to an entity. I remained in constant contact with my Network on Earth, the distance easily short enough the expenditure was unnoticeable. Soon enough, I would arrive at Venus, convert it to energy, and discover my past. No matter the result, this was going to be interesting.

Over the course of the next two months, I exhaustively went over the Thinker and Warrior's memories, both shared by my partner and the ones I'd assimilated from the Warrior after its demise. Watching, analyzing, learning. Over three thousand cycles, over billions of years. Trillions upon trillions of lessons learned, of knowledge and abilities gained from the shattered corpses of billions of species.

Yeah, our history wasn't exactly the most moral.

And now, I could recognize that, between all of my mental frameworks, thanks to my Humanity shard, even without the emulated human personality. The cycle, as it had been, was one of the most wasteful enterprises in existence. Perhaps the most wasteful.

Had a species been simply left alone when the entities departed, they would advance further, develop more, have more insights, more chances to come across the answer to a question the entities hadn't determined yet. The tiny markers the entities left behind as warning could instead be beacons leading to time capsules. Uplift a species, instill in it a desire to learn, and perhaps leave a scanning and archive shard in the system to record any unexpected events, and then leave them alone for another few thousand or even million years.

Probability theory dictated that - barring direct probability manipulation, of course - it was inevitable that the species in question would have come up with new and interesting ideas in that intervening time.

Now, could an entity other than my partner and myself have developed this insight? Of course. With the sheer number of us alive in the multiverse, random chance dictated a significant portion of our development. It was entirely possible that another entity had decided to be creative. Conversely, I strongly suspected that such wasn't the case.

It was far, far too easy for my species to fall into the trap of repeating ourselves once we'd found a working method. Certainly, we constantly evaluated everything we came across, but often dismissed new ideas as ineffective or inefficient, failing to explore them in the depth we should have.

I could see, in the memories I was perusing, a million million little tiny lessons the Warrior and Thinker had ignored. Most I would have too, even with the benefit of creativity. But here and now, with nothing to do but think? I could catalog them, save them for further exploration. I sent data back across the miniscule distance to Earth, set new shards to grow, offering the teachings I'd developed to my partner. They accepted, of course. Our species hungered for knowledge above all else. In the beginning, it was for power, though that too was a type of knowledge. Then, when the cycles began, it was not knowledge for knowledge's sake, but for ensuring our species' survival past the end.

Now, the Hunter and I still searched and learned and gathered and refined, but not solely for such a base instinct as propagation. Finally we'd achieved the structural goal of acquiring knowledge for knowledge's sake. Building on what we already knew to reach further into the unknown.

We'd made vague plans as for what was to be done about the rest of our species, as well.

Projections indicated that in nearly all probable cases, we'd have to enact a near-complete extinction. All data we had on our own species - and considering that the subject was our own species, it was a lot - indicated as many as ninety-nine point eight eight two percent of our kind wouldn't accept the new model we proposed. Again, we possessed the nasty habit of clinging furiously to the first workable solution we found.

It was part of the reason I was focusing so much on temporal mechanics and simulation. The latter would serve as a weapon and defense all in one, while the former would assist in letting us catch up to the rate at which we reproduced. Exponential growth was hard to beat, especially when it had a head start of several billion years.

Once I got my memories back, and once I'd sorted through them and evaluated them, I'd turn some of my focus to memetics, information attacks, and the like. It would be far easier to propagate a piece of information throughout our species than it would be to physically fly through space and attack each individually. Taking advantage of our race's unspoken agreement to share all information, I would hijack, subvert, infiltrate, and cripple any entity I could contact. Their memories would serve to further my and my partner's knowledge, which we would apply to furthering our plan.

It was a workable plan, if unwieldy.

I returned my focus to the present, split between maintaining my slow course through space and examining my memories.

Touchdown on Venus was an exceptionally uneventful event. Nothing went wrong, nothing broke, quite literally nothing unexpected happened.

Good.

I stretched my physical body, settling into the dimensional lattice and allowing the shard clusters responsible for converting a quinvigintillion iterations of a planet into pure energy to begin their deploying processes. As I wasn't also using the planet as a form of propulsion, I was free to draw the process out, taking advantage of methodicalness to ensure not an iota of that energy was wasted.

Setting up only took a fraction of a planetary revolution, roughly the equivalent of a few days on Earth. When everything was prepared, I sent a broadcast to the Hunter.

Beginning the gathering now.

The odds are in your favor.

A Hunger Games reference and snark? I'd better get moving before you become God-Empress of Earth in my absence.

The Hunter sent the impression of a laugh.

In any case, you have no need of well-wishes, so I shall simply ask you to return in a timely manner.

Of course.

Drawing power away from my broadcasts, I turned to the energy supercluster.

Even considering I was only planning to consume a tenth of the planets available, it was a large amount of energy, even by entity standards. My shards would convert the matter into energy and store it, charging the batteries for one massive temporal rift and a staggering number of scans.

Waiting would accomplish next to nothing. I began the process.

Planet after planet after planet vanished, and quietly, unobtrusively, tresvigintillions of quettagrams of mass were converted into energy, fuel packed in hyperdense fractal biocrystalline batteries.

In the overall scheme of things, I'd not changed the multiversal landscape to the point of unrecognizability. A tenth of the iterations of the planet gone still left the system perfectly recognizable. But the energy provided was more than enough. The power to unmake the entire Milky Way galaxy, seventy-six unvigintillion times over. All concentrated in a grouping of shards, held, waiting, by naught but my will. Contained.

Until it wasn't.

My temporal supercluster screamed as it rent a tunnel through linear, chronological, and empirical time, reaching back years. The very fabric of spacetime let out a horrific, almost imperceptible buzzing at the massive and flagrant violation of one of its most intrinsic rules. Reality did not like paradoxes. Now, if you could anchor the chronological beginning of a time loop, you would be fine. Grey Boy's shard was one such power. But what I was doing, a full-on tunnel into the past, with no reference point, no directionality, no chronological precedence, no anchor?

No, reality did not like that one bit.

My temporal shards straining against the concentrated weight of over half a decade's worth of the multiverse's temporal stability, I diverted half of the remaining energy into the scanning suite. Each and every type of detection methodology I or the Loner or the Thinker or the Warrior had ever discovered, all activated at once, at maximum power.

For the briefest instant, I saw everything. Countless iterations of untold numbers of planets throughout the galactic supercluster, hundreds of entities traveling within, feeding off the life so scarcely found, but above all, I saw myself. Myself, as I was.

I wasn't stupid enough to try and consciously process all the information gained as I acquired it. No, each detection shard was paired with a completely empty archive cluster, grown specifically for this purpose. It was absolutely overkill, even considering the sheer scale of the endeavor. I could have fit everything into two clusters at the most. But this way ensured the most bandwidth. Time, ironically enough, was of the essence. I could not hold the temporal bridge open too long, both due to energy cost and detection concerns.

Regardless, the information was dumped, haphazardly, into the vast crystal libraries I'd brought, all preserved completely accurately, if messily, for later perusal. And consequently, within that library would be a directory of the previous me, from the position of every subatomic particle in my body to each and every one of my memories.

My job here was nearly finished. I let the temporal bridge vanish, reality shuddering as it reasserted itself. I immediately set a broadcast shard to the task of backing up the data with the rest of my Network, not caring about order or analysis for now. I had enough time for that on the trip back, but I could not risk doing this again for a while, so to lose the data would be to lose years of progress and work. But now, as I pulled myself back together, setting shards to low-power mode, preparing for takeoff, all I had left to look forward to for the next few months was the most in-depth analysis I'd ever performed.

After all, I'd not only retrieved my memories, but had captured the state of the entire Laniakea supercluster over a period of five years. That data, especially that of the hundreds of entities within it, was invaluable. All their memories, their shards, the countless species they'd encountered, all of it, now ours.

Here. The Hunter broadcast, noting a set of temporal and dimensional coordinates. That's where your previous self hit the snag. It was during the activation of my predecessor's Superweapon shard.

I see. I replied. And I could. Each time Eidolon's subconscious activated the Superweapon shard, it drew from the Thinker's store of contingencies to form the Endbringers. Unrestricted powers. The first two had no great effect beyond Earth Bet. The power draw of my previous self's Shroud spiked as the Simurgh came online, but the real trouble came next, with Khonsu. A temporal "ripple," if you will.

That was what had interrupted and twisted around the Assassin's - and what an uninspired name that was - Administrator's attempt to connect to a host. Instead of heading to Earth Bet, the signal was coiled in upon itself, fractally spiraling through the multiverse, until it latched onto the first prime worldline it passed. And by some cosmic joke, that prime worldline was one of the seven the Warrior had utterly overlooked, folding them up into the others. The Administrator had panicked, and took a copy of the human's personality, sending it up the proverbial line, where another increasingly-unlikely chain of events led to the Assassin losing half its memories and emulating that human's consciousness. It was also that temporal ripple that created the books Worm and Ward, if only in the abstract. See, it went forwards as well as backwards, rebounding off of Titan Fortuna's death at the end of Ward and carrying that information back in time.

The simulation and scanning shards had missed the information wave in the utter chaos that was the Thinker's Network trying to wake up to provide the infrastructure to the Superweapons and failing, so that prime worldline got hit full-blast. Any creative-minded human in the vicinity of the impact would have had a few dreams regarding the events, but the more mentally robust ones would have been inspired. And Wildbow, it seemed, had lucked out, and gotten pretty much the whole story imprinted on his subconscious.

All in all, it was an ungodly number of cosmic chances all piling up into one of the least-likely coincidences the Hunter or I had ever seen.

But it was a mere coincidence, that much was certain.

It was beneficial, at least. I said, absently. The Hunter sent a sense of ambivalent agreement.

I wasn't alive then, and wouldn't have ever lived save for your actions, so I can't judge as I'm biased. Certainly, we have near-absolute confirmation of a timeline where you and I simply don't exist, but personally, I prefer this one.

I projected a laugh at my partner.

As do I. Still, I prefer making use of my intellect rather than that half-mad scramble the Assassin performed.

And I prefer emotion and levity to being splattered all over a planet's surface, being strip-mined for powers by an organization incredibly competent at being incompetent.

I snorted.

Jokes about Cauldron aside, there's no reason to change the past. It happened, and the energy requirements to power through the paradox of changing it really aren't worth it given the results are almost guaranteed to be worse than our current reality. So insead, how much progress have you made on the other entities' memories?

The Hunter shifted against me through the dimensional boundaries, crystal grinding against crystal… flirtatiously (what the bloody fuck?) as they replied.

Your Optimum has been the main source of logismos. My shards have found a few things, but they've all been forwarded to you as well. I've also gotten a lot of interesting data for my own Oracle project, but no breakthroughs yet.

I broadcast understanding in return, keeping all other reactions perfectly neutral. I had my own work to do with the data.

My memories hadn't revealed any miraculous source of infinite energy, as expected, but they did highlight a few errors in my simulation shards, where they'd gotten things wrong. All of them were now refined and updated, and now, after integrating said memories, finally, I had all of my shards available to me.

We still had to process and integrate the memories and knowledge of the several hundred entities my scan had found, but now, nearly all of the immediate, short-term issues were over. It was finally time to turn our focus to the larger problems.

A/N:

This marks the end of the prologue, and all of the pre-written chapters. I'm hoping to get a bit more backlog built up before posting anything more, so it'll be a while before new chapters go up, but they will be there eventually, that much I can promise. I'm not going to drop this fic for anything short of an urgent real-life emergency. With that said, I'm off to go write more. Enjoy!

Last edited: Apr 1, 2023

Hmm, that's weird…

I reset the Oracle shard, the name my partner had decided upon for their pocket universe creation shard, and ran the experiment again.

Dear, have a look at this and tell me I'm not misinterpreting?

Let me see, it's… oh. Huh. That's odd.

My sentiments exactly.

The shard had been experimenting with various ways of actually separating out a pocket universe from the rest of the multiverse, and this latest test was meant to see if it could repurpose the actual multiversal structure for itself. In theory, it would have made the walls between two realities a bit thinner, but not to any noticeable degree save for an entity or species possessing equivalent dimensional ability.

Instead, we were getting an incredibly strange fractal resonance effect from the barrier, as though it was vibrating from under a thick stack of metal plates.

As one, my counterpart and I dove in. I had already established that this was a repeatable effect, so that meant we had actually discovered something completely new. That was something distinctly rare at this point. Certainly, we might further our knowledge on a subject each cycle, but for something completely unexpected to show up? That was something that happened on average, once every few dozen cycles. Or, at least according to the old average it was. My partner and I hadn't yet been around long enough to get a proper average of the results our creativity had on the cycle's statistics, especially considering our massive alterations to the cycle itself.

But back to the issue in front of us, the odd results from the Oracle shard.

Something was going on with the barriers between realities. I could honestly say, with the benefit of the memories and experience of several entities, that this had never happened before. We were an innately multidimensional species, we didn't have problems with crossing dimensions. And this, whatever it was, was not a locked dimensional barrier, it was not a portal, it was not a shard leaving half of itself in another reality, no. This was something else.

As I fed the specifications of the shard to my analysis cluster, bringing up all the data we had on dimensional manipulation, the Hunter probed the anomaly itself. Though referring to it as a centralized effect was inaccurate, we could reproduce it on any barrier, I'd checked. As my shards began pulling apart the scenario in simulations, the Hunter broadcast to me.

Trying something, probably stupid. Resurrect me if this goes wrong?

Hunter, please don't use time travel as an excuse for a lack of caution.

Please?

Fine. I've set the temporal anchor.

With a near-guaranteed method of resurrection now viable, I watched as my partner pressed their physical body into the barrier between realities, twisting in an exceedingly unintuitive way to fold themself through two of the resonances.

They went utterly silent for a full minute and twenty-three seconds. An eternity, on the scale we worked at.

Dear? They finally broadcast, quietly and tentatively, but with none of the markers that indicated coercion or hostility. I think you need to see this.

Intrigued, I mimicked my partner's actions, twisting where I felt I should push. As I slipped around and through the barrier, I froze.

Laid out before us was Earth. That much was a fairly understandable outcome. The issue arose in that this wasn't an Earth we'd cataloged. This was a completely new reality. And that meant… I twisted again, shunting myself into yet another new reality. That meant… Each and every one of the resonances, the folds, was another reality as well. But beyond that, they were fractal.

The multiverse was infinite.

Planets crumbled beneath the wrath of a goddess.

How? HOW? We've been multidimensional for TENS OF THOUSANDS of mega-anna! HOW DID WE OVERLOOK THIS? The Hunter raged, shattering continents as they lashed out with their physical body. OUR REASON FOR LIVING IS BASED ON A FUCKING MISTAKE!

I pressed against my partner, shoring up their more vital shards as I replied, protecting them from any more strain.

Believe me, I'm just as enraged as you, I sent, tone low and strained. Suppressing my own emotional reaction had barely been possible. I had needed to reactivate the emulation to take advantage of the experience the human had with emotion. But the implications…

I shuddered slightly, something my partner felt rather clearly due to our bodies' contact.

The entire probability-damned CYCLE! EVERY SINGLE ENTITY OUT THERE! They spat, emotional indicators wildly fluctuating. Their broadcasts were haphazard and fractured. Abruptly, the data stream that was their voice changed to something silky and dangerous.

Dear? We need to commit speciocide.

I let out a vibrating hum, still using my physical body.

As we are, statistically, likely the only two entities in existence with any semblance of a moral code recognizable by the majority of the hosts we have encountered, I'm using that authority to make a decision on behalf of our species. The entities need to die. To the last, bar us.

I shifted again, cradling my partner in coils of crystal.

I concur. Any entity in the mental framework of single-minded pursuit of endless feeding and reproduction must be culled.

Finally, slowly, the Hunter calmed, resting against me. They seemed to have accepted the caveat I added to their goal, but I knew it was a long shot. As they had mentioned, we were likely the only two entities with morals. But who knew what the multiverse… no, we needed a new word. Omniverse. Who knew what the omniverse contained? I suspected that there were other multiversal branches with their own entities, just as isolated from us as we had been from them, as well as branches devoid of our species altogether.

Still holding onto my partner, I sent a quiet internal broadcast over my Network, letting the Hunter listen in on the conversation.

Optimum? We need answers, fast. I'm allocating you 10^24 realities' worth of energy. The relevant shards are already beginning the conversion for you.

Optimum responded with wordless acceptance, pinging the Keystone to get permission to form direct connections to the energy supercluster. As the links began to crystallize, my shards formed massive gravity wells throughout a septillion realities, causing planets and suns alike to lurch and begin collecting together. One hundred eighty duovigintillion joules of energy. Much, much less than I'd devoted to the temporal bridge and scan, but Optimum was quite a bit more efficient than those shards. Matter vanished, energy filling my shards' stores in turn. Optimum drank deeply.

And tim d.

Alright, Optimum reported, somewhat nervously. I focused first on the technical details rather than the state of the omniverse itself, so that you could grow the shards necessary for interacting with it properly.

Data poured into my and the Hunter's archives, all neatly collated and sorted, ready for instant perusal. We did so, taking in the wealth of knowledge. There was much to do, and this was only the beginning.

The structure of the omniverse was surprisingly simple. The Hunter and I had soon developed a numerical coordinate identification system, as numbers were by definition infinite and matched well with the branches.

Existence's gradient flowed. Prime worldlines, those more 'stable', had more ontological weight, and thus were more likely to have timelines (and subsequently, worldlines) split off from them. So, each prime worldline had an infinite number of branches. We used whole numbers to designate the prime realities, and a subset identifier that would increase as the divergence increased to identify the subdimensions. Simple, easy to understand, and easy to use.

But not all prime worldlines were created equal. They, too, had a gradient. And moving 'upwards' to a reality with greater ontological weight took exponentially more effort the 'higher' one got. We could calculate a possible bound to the worldlines, but only on one end of the scale; we theorized of a "true" prime worldline, that all others split off from.

The split timelines, on the other hand, continued forever. Already, I'd had to alter vast swathes of shards to give them escape conditions as they trapped themselves in logic loops trying to factor true infinity into their calculations. The Hunter did the same once I pointed the issue out.

Regardless, the gradient meant it likely wouldn't ever be worth the cost of forcing our way into the true prime worldline, but we had all the rest of infinity to explore, so it was no great loss. Regardless, randomness - because as far as we could tell, it was - when combined with infinity meant that all potentialities would be repeated an infinite number of times.

Net difference nil.

In more personal discoveries, the various errors produced by our shards when they encountered completed infinity were proving very useful in my efforts to develop a memetic weapon to use against our kind. And despite what Optimum had reported, they had taken a glance at the few quintillion closest realities closest to the ones we inhabited, so I had plenty of new information to analyze.

Realities with different physical laws were nothing new, but some of these were quite interesting indeed. My Shaper cluster in particular was very excited about the worldline where the planet was inhabited entirely by sapient dragons. The creatures' biology wouldn't work in most other universes, but Shaper was already spewing ideas to any that'd listen about how to ameliorate those little issues.

Shaper really liked dragons.

There were realities where Earth was more advanced, less advanced, nonexistent altogether, and so much more. Subdimensionally-omnipresent semi-aware energy fields being utilized by biologicals who called it magic. Sentient stars. Beings that fed on the pain of the dying, symbiotes that eased someone's final moments.

Shaper rather excitedly directed my attention to a reality where there were dragon shapeshifters.

There were realities with living, sapient knots of energy worshiped as tangible gods by the mortals. Worlds where ghosts existed, and speaking to the dead was considered normal. A universe devoid of metal, with a spacefaring humanity that grew starships out of trees. Zombie apocalypses. Pirates in airships. A world with a secret cult of ninja who lived in the hollowed-out Great Wall of China. And yes, there was a world with zombie ninja pirates. Surprisingly effective ones, too.

Some clusters had discovered that their reality wasn't alone, tentatively reaching out into the wider multiverse around them. Those were of particular note, especially those that'd reached into realities with differing physical laws. The most amusing of that subset was a completely technological race of AIs (I would have to look into how those emerged later) who had made contact with a world that looked so stereotypically fantasy that I almost felt bad for the logical programs. There were literal elves with saliva that made plants grow faster.

The Hunter was as enamored as I was with the diversity. So much knowledge, so much to learn. But there was an equal amount of danger. Complete unknowns aside, there were already beings we'd seen that had the potential to kill an uncautious entity.

So, we made provisions. Even as we took in and processed the new data, we were growing shards and shard clusters that would become the newest researchers in our respective collectives.

We would not be unprepared.

Our first ventures into the wider omniverse were tentative. Careful. Limited to external observation of realities only, and further, to realities we were certain didn't contain beings capable of detecting our scans.

Over the course of two revolutions around the system's star, we quietly recorded everything we saw. New shards were grown, coded, tested, and refined to the point their efficiency became acceptable. And yet even with all of the new shards, the number of changes made to the base nature of the entities dwarfed all other lessons.

For all that Earth mostly only housed humans, many, many worlds presented more than one sapient species. And the variation between even just the humans was invaluable. We were assimilating the knowledge of septillions upon septillions of lines of development, of divergence, to the point that some worlds might as well have been a planet on the far side of the universe. There was enough data that, at the beginning, we couldn't keep up. We had to limit our scope yet again, taking wide-scale snapshots but only focusing on a relative handful of worlds.

So, in response, we did what entities did best, and learned.

Optimum, Simulator, Oracle, the Eye, and all the rest of the simulation shards were constantly running at near-capacity, extrapolating from the broader snapshots as the more direct analysis shards simply looked at the worlds themselves. But of course, they were all refining themselves the entire time as well. Upgrades came and were outperformed regularly. Though, for all our capacity for holding immense amounts of data, we'd grown physically as well. We could appear to be the same mass as before by simply spreading ourselves over more realities, but if we were to gather back up into the limited multiverse we'd been relegated to initially, we would rival stars in size. Individual shard clusters could be bigger than planets.

The Shaper was a good example. With the constant reworking of the base structures of all shards across both entities, their capabilities had exploded. The Shroud had achieved its resurgence, as well. More efficient, more encompassing, its abilities had improved on all fronts. Had I possessed this iteration of the Shroud upon my awakening, I would have been free to do whatever I wished without detection at all. I could have walked up to the Warrior's Avatar and shoved a projectile infused with Sting through him without his notice. And even that was disregarding the improvements made to Sting itself.

To summarize, just about each and every shard was now two to three times better, on average.

But we hadn't forgotten our original plans. They simply had to be modified in the face of the new information. Originally, we would have been forced to leave Earth due to resource constraints, but this wellspring of data and food was, as far as we could tell, infinite. We would be staying for a while longer.

So, we had decided to test our modified cycle on the Earths. In both concept and execution, it was very simple: a low-level psychic suggestion propagated through the species' subconscious, that made ideation a more popular pastime. When given a problem, people would enjoy coming up with solutions for it.

We broadcast the signal, and waited, and watched. From most, the average data gain was roughly the same as it was in the old cycle, but any creative-minded individual produced exponentially more. Physicists mused on theoretical applications in their fields of study, biologists daydreamed about what was possible using the limits of flesh, creative writers invented new concepts and pseudoscience, and fans on message boards argued hypotheticals.

We patiently sat back and took in all of the many Earths' ideas, testing them, checking physical interactions, comparing them with the science of the other worlds, all the many sources of knowledge coming together to form a whole so much more than the sum of its parts.

And while the reality the hosts called Bet was aware of our existence, none of the others were. Near-perfect stealth, not even relying on the Shroud, merely anonymity. The previous method of the cycle, utilizing shard bonding, allowed for even the dullest of hosts to realize something about their world had changed. Our version was practically undetectable barring extensive, constant, and long-term psychological screening, something frowned upon by the societies that valued the individual.

Fortunately for us, it was those realities that most often led to the organized society that was most beneficial for our purposes. Hosts needed a relatively stable life to be able to focus on abstracts. The hierarchy of needs was, at least in part, fairly accurate. This species was social, individual, and formed communities. Each identity was separated from the whole. The worlds that fostered a comfortable life for the individual more often than not led to the species progressing as a whole. Much like us, they were adverse to stagnation. They challenged themselves, learned.

As did we.

I flinched as the equivalent of a dimensional tremor rippled out from a reality one of my partner's shards resided in. Lashing outwards, my Shroud stilled the ripples, working in tandem with the Hunter's to eliminate the disturbance before it could propagate far enough to reach a society advanced enough to detect them.

Violent and particularly inventive cursing sounded out over the Networks, originating from the shard in question. A pity it couldn't be as creative with its purpose as its language, but I supposed the situation warranted it. Apologetically, it broadcast a data packet containing its findings from the most recent failure, and interestingly, a short list of recommendations regarding the other shards that might have been affected. That was new. Shards were by intent hyperspecialized, but each was connected to the broader Network, and could theoretically ping for any information. Whether or not that ping would be permitted was a different matter, but this shard had merely asked for a list of other shards that dealt with the dimensional barriers, and subsequently had taken a small amount of time to determine possible issues they might have faced based on its mistake.

The shard was being mindful of others. Not from a moral perspective, but as a desire to prevent further obstacles within the entity. To reiterate: interesting. The shard in question was powerful enough to be aware, as evidenced by its expletives, and developed a form of identity within the group.

Reading over its logs, I let out a private sigh. Shards were hyperspecialized for a reason - acting outside of its area of expertise was not something the shard was good at, and doing so had noticeably decreased its productivity. There existed shard clusters for the purpose of analysis, for threat detection, for scanning. They would have, and did, catch each and every of the suggested issues, before the list was given out.

More to the point, what was to be done? Ordinarily, such an issue never would have made it to the hub; the various administrators would have detected the issue and set orders for the shard's modification. My attention was drawn solely due to the scope of the failed experiment.

I devoted a sliver more of my attention to the issue, debating the merits of both methods and firmly quashing my instinct to go with the established solution without more consideration. To increase redundancy, to make shards more individual? Or to streamline, pare down and compress? Shards were already redundant, they had to be to function when separated from the entity. Each shard that bonded with a host was capable of so much more than the power it granted. Each could scan, simulate, modify the host's biology, absorb and store energy, reconfigure themselves, defend themselves against the perils of planetfall, move through dimensions, and much more. All in addition to the shard's specific concept. But without bonding to a host, most of those functions were extraneous. Wasteful.

I brought my primary focus to the issue, leaving slivers to manage the remainder. This was not an issue with an individual shard anymore. It was a paradigm shift. To increase the shards' individuality, making them each more could provide benefits, true. But to prune them would benefit the capabilities of the entity as a whole.

The Hunter's and my new method of utilizing the cycle was not dependent on rooting shards in hosts. One might even argue that the cycle did not even require interaction, though that statement's validity was dependent on a certain definition of the word.

We would focus on the whole.

Proposition. I voiced the idea to my partner, layering the intricacies into the transmission. I could feel the Hunter's attention shift, listening to my idea, considering my opinions, evaluating based on their own judgment. Their reply came swiftly. Much less nuanced, suitable for conversation. While concept broadcasting was rather efficient, it was unnecessary for casual discussion.

We won't be using direct host bonding as much, true, but at least some contingencies should remain.

Certainly, all have the potential to prove useful, but most are dramatically underutilized. Some are truly integral to the shards, feeding and the like for example, but others can easily be eliminated.

Contingencies are by definition provisions for unforeseen difficulties. With our new vastly-expanded sphere, we cannot rely on old lessons as much.

As a whole, no knowledge would be lost, and allowing our shards to concenter their efforts would in fact empower the entity. It is on the level of individual shards that the issue of redundancy is brought to light, especially compared to the whole. But even if we pared everything possible away, there would still remain a few abilities, seeing as the base structure is multifunctional and mutable -

I cut myself off mid-broadcast as the idea struck. It was plain to see that my partner had realized it as well.

Mutable. That's the answer. As we are speaking of contingencies, the functions don't need to be present constantly, the shard merely must have access to them.

And information is stored easily by shards, needing no modifications. This works perfectly. Increase loyalty, lower the restrictions on self-modification, and ensure each shard has access to the blueprints of the structures and functions they would need should they become isolated.

And with the contingencies stored as knowledge, the physical structures can be removed from the shards, permitting for more efficient work by almost a full order of magnitude. No, possibly greater.

This will require massive reconstruction of the Networks.

The Keystone is raring for an upgrade. Do you want to handle the shards or the Network?

Shards. I'll pass on any further inspirations.

As will I.

With one last emotional data transmission of wordless encouragement from both of us to the other, we each turned to our respective undertakings.

Ikenga

I sat in a comfortable rocking chair that hadn't existed five seconds ago, taking in the early-morning horizon as I waited for Bastet to join me. All shards required extensive testing as part of the improvement of the Network, and the Avatar and Human shards were no different. I was a sliver of the Architect, thoughts and memories codified as human, here on a world with the standard flora and fauna of Earth, but no people.

I felt my greater self shift in response to a small transmission from the Hunter. I did not know what the contents were, having temporarily set aside that ability, but I could tell that the Hunter was amused and anticipatory, and the Architect a mixture of exasperated and amused.

And Bastet was still suspiciously missing from the planet.

I briefly pushed my emotions through my radiating aura in a mockery of Broadcast. They would understand it. A wordless warning, that whatever prank the Hunter had planned had better not delay the schedule overmuch.

As I felt the Hunter's Avatar shard begin forming a body, I reigned my sensorium back to the standard limit of enhanced human senses. Blinded and rendered deaf in comparison.

Footsteps sounded on the wooden deck behind me. Lighter than they should be, for a human of her frame. What had she done now? Slowly, I stood and turned to face her. Her Avatar shard had done good work. Light platinum blonde hair - likely a holdover from her progenitor - framed a face with hazel eyes dancing with amusement. Toned muscles, excellent body balance, fully formed internal organs.

And a pair of prominent cat ears protruding from her head.

Closing my eyes, I slowly reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose. Bastet finally burst out into uproarious laughter, almost doubling over.

Looking at her again, I suppressed a groan.

"… Why?" I asked, voice full of secondhand pain as her laughter finally began to show signs of slowing.

"Well," she began. "My name's based on a cat goddess, no?"

I didn't dignify the paper-thin logic with a response, simply turning and sitting back down in my rocking chair. She stalked forward and seated herself on the armrest of the chair, leaning against-

For the love of- she included a tail.

I very pointedly ignored her attempts to tickle me with it, instead gesturing out at the sunrise.

"Perspective's important," I declared, leaving the nuances of the statement abandoned. Bastet stilled and simply leaned against my shoulder, looking out at the pink clouds.

"You told Leto something to that effect as well, about emotions," she replied. "And I agree. It's a star. We eat them by the hundreds. But from here, it's beautiful, reflecting on the clouds."

We looked out at said clouds for a minute. Bastet broke the silence.

"That one even looks like an elephant!" she said, very obviously using her shards to shape the vapor. I gave her a flat glare as I pulsed Stilling, breaking the shard's hold over the water. The shape of the technicolor pachyderm remained, though it would dissipate soon enough.

"You're more… flighty than usual," I remarked, the implied question easily picked out of the statement.

Bastet hummed as she pushed me over to the side of the chair seat, sitting down next to me and retaking her position against my side and shoulder.

"It's all… new," she began. "Emotions, daydreams, distractions, whims… being able to entertain whims… Plus, we're slivers, our full selves are still working at full efficiency right now. Our job is to test Avatar and Human by doing whatever, so I'm taking the opportunities where I can."

Acting on one of my own whims, I patted her head in acceptance and agreement. She was the one who chose to be a cat.

The ears twitched beneath my hand as Bastet shivered slightly.

"You actually wired them into the nervous system?" I asked incredulously. "A full joint project between Shaper, Avatar, and the neurology cluster just for a prank?"

"Meow," she replied, clearly enunciating the word in English while giving me a mildly amused look. I sighed.

After another moment of silence, I shifted slightly and asked, "Given how much you're cuddling me, I'd say you are enjoying this, right?"

Bastet snorted, nodding.

"Another new thing. Actually, I wonder how it'll translate when we re-integrate with the whole…"

I raised an eyebrow.

"Good question. We removed the viral-reproduction instinct a while ago, and that was pretty much the only pleasure-granting part of a natural entity's mind, but I remember tuning the Human shard specifically for translation, even if I don't have the details right now."

A smirk suddenly grew over Bastet's face.

"But that's only one data point. Surely we're not such poor scientists as to leave it at one data point?"

I laughed.

"Certainly, we can do this again. But that raises another question: what the hell is our relationship classified as?"

Bastet blinked, expression becoming more and more pensive as the seconds went on.

"Well, we've never had an actual marriage ceremony," she muttered. "But it's not really courtship… pretty firmly established… and you ate one of my three parents, which doesn't really apply but would get hilarious reactions if we announced it randomly like that…"

"It goes deeper than simple partners, seeing as we regularly exchange literal bits of mind and body," I offered. "And I refuse to use the term soulmate in any sense."

Bastet shuddered.

"Oh fuck no. We agree perfectly on that. Hmm… counterpart describes more role than relationship… and mate is nowhere near encompassing enough."

She blinked again, looking up at me.

"I have no clue. I didn't download all of the archive shards to the avatar, the cat bits were taking up enough time already."

"Well, neither did I, but more because I wanted to look at birds as birds rather than collections of atoms. Put it on the list to investigate later?"

"Already done."

I stood from the chair, peeling Bastet off of my arm and setting her down on the porch, much to her indignation. As the chair and porch both began to dissolve into nothingness, I glanced at the horizon again.

"Want to swim with dolphins?"

"Make it orcas, and sure!"

The changes made to each entity were completed relatively quickly, considering the sheer scale of the endeavor. Less than a revolution around the system's star. Barely less, but less nonetheless.

The shift from a focus on shards to a focus on the entity as a whole brought innumerable benefits, most calculated, and yet some unexpected. While the average shard size had shrunk, the total number of shards had commensurately increased, resulting in the pair being only roughly eighty-three percent their previous sizes.

Consolidation, streamlining, hyperfocus, pruning; whatever the label, the event was a momentous one. The pair lived for the advancement of their own knowledge; such a feat was an accomplishment. Setting aside the vastly increased speeds the beings now worked at, there was one major unexpected change that both entities regarded as the best.

The tighter integration led to their minds being more. Their thoughts clearer, memory a constant rather than something to be searched through, personalities more stable. With the hubs more enmeshed with the Network, lesser identity blurred. No longer were ideas and projects handed off to the clusters - though such could still be accomplished - but the entities simply acted, with the tools available to them.

Privately, the Hunter ruminated. There was nothing left of the active consciousness of the Thinker, of course, but had it seen the recent events, the Hunter believed the Thinker would have been satisfied.

The entities had transcended their previous existence, these two rising above all others of their kind. Emergence from a chrysalis.

On their original planet, they could be equated to newborns; driven purely by instinct, hunger. Their species' first - and in most cases, only - transcension was the departure from the planet. Subsequently, they could be called children, adolescents. Still moved by instinct, but learning. And now, finally, a third stage: adulthood. True abstract thought, creativity, personality, all marks of a thinking being. Choice. Whim.

They were undeniably greater.

Certainly not the greatest in power - yet - for much knowledge still eluded them. Even among their own kind, it was likely that some entity had grown differently enough to outclass them in a battle.

But developmentally, the Architect and Hunter were the apex. Not the ultimate zenith, of course - there was always more room to learn and grow - but of those extant, they were the highest.

These entities, however, did not turn to gloat at those below them. They merely looked at themselves, and saw imperfection. The gaps in their knowledge. Their limitations. Their fragility in the face of complete infinity.

And then, they decided to fix those imperfections.

They had been observing as large a portion of the omniverse as they physically could for quite some time. Now, they looked among the lower-risk worlds, the simpler worlds. A safe place to truly begin experimentation outside the bounds of what they knew. A handful of shards remained connected to hosts on the planet, so they restricted their search to iterations of the world they were presently on, so as to expediently retrieve their shards once the hosts died.

And then, they found their goal. A quieter reality. A peaceful world, for the most part. Tiny pockets of conflict arose occasionally, but the overwhelming majority was idyllic.

The reason for this peace was also the reason the entities finalized their decision to use this reality: an interstellar race of parasites had arrived on Earth to take up residence within the humans' heads.

The Hunter sent a chuckle to their partner as the pair flowed through the barriers between realities, reseating and resettling themselves. They looked at the chosen world, with its enthralled humanity, and reviewed the data regarding the parasites again.

Alien parasites in hosts' brains?

The Hunter scoffed.

Our schtick.

Last edited: Sep 13, 2023

This world was, as specified, peaceful.

We'd looked specifically for a calm world, different enough from the ones we knew of to be interesting, and possessing no technology or ability that would allow for danger towards us. And while sifting through countless possibilities, we'd happened upon this reality.

Both my partner and I instantly had decided upon it. Not only did this world fit the criteria we'd set, but the irony was too good to pass up. See, this world looked to be at first glance a utopia, were it not for the aliens who'd come to Earth and set up in the humans' brains.

Sound familiar?

These parasites weren't entities. We could only be compared in the vaguest of abstracts: a worm-like physical shape, parasitism - even if we'd abandoned that now - and the aforementioned dealing with brains. Where the comparison ended was our attitudes.

These inferior beings were the most egotistical, hidebound, proselytizing, bigoted hypocrites I had come across in almost six hundred seventy cycles.

The word they used to refer to themselves translated as 'inner driving force of the body', and so the Hunter and I had decided to translate it as pneuma, or pneumas in the plural.

But really, their chosen name was the least of their issues. First of all, they took over a host's brain and caused near-complete ego death. The qualifier was present due to the exceedingly small number of sapients who'd managed to retain themselves. Most had simply vanished. The pneumas then, with the benefit of their host's memories, went about the host's life as usual.

And then came the kicker: Their egocentrism, the pompous and casual arrogance they displayed, which manifested in a particularly odd manner. They believed, almost to the last, that they were morally better than those they took over, and thus that they were right to do so, even obligated to do so for the benefit of their hosts. To hear them preach about the 'infection of brutality' that permeated all other species and how the pneumas were inherently peaceful while they casually extinguished quadrillions of minds was odious. Even the entities never deluded themselves into believing their goal was anything but self-interest.

The Hunter and I shifted through the layers, settling more sensory shards into the realities adjacent to our focus.

Adaptable, my partner mused as they perused the preliminary scans. I sent wordless agreement in return, giving the data a brief inspection myself. The pneumas' biology was, even at first glance, impressive. My Shaper cluster would be having fun.

They were sinuous, a few inches long, and covered in tiny yet fairly strong threadlike antennae that they called 'attachments'. Each pneuma had, on average, one thousand, and it was these attachments that they used to control their hosts. When implanted into a host, the tendrils latched onto nerve centers, intercepting and controlling the signals through them.

And they'd been able to control just about every sapient creature they'd come across so far. Twelve sapient species. They required at least a semi-centralized nervous system-esque setup to be able to control a host, but were impressively flexible with that requirement. Their biology hadn't needed to adapt to the new species, either, they were flexible enough from the start. Humans required eight hundred twenty-seven attachments, and the pneumas' records indicated that this was the highest of all the species they'd encountered.

They were biologically immortal, but sensitive to temperature fluctuations - to the point that off their homeworld, they needed a host to survive for any appreciable period of time - but some of their chosen hosts had body temperatures outside that range, so was there something different about being in a host? I would need to investigate with Shaper.

From the overview, their biology has the potential to give us several benefits, even completely disregarding the other species, I sent to my partner.

Certainly. Their instincts are amazingly efficient, considering the mess evolution usually is. A subconscious analysis of a neural structure, determining how best to attach themselves within moments of contact. Those heuristics alone would make this planet worth it.

And their neuroplasticity… We picked a very good time to reorder ourselves to focus on the whole. This planet will provide much data for optimizing the networks.

In a strange twist, while they required centralized minds to parasitize off of, they themselves were decentralized. Memory was encoded throughout the whole, in robust and redundant organization. Certainly not efficient, but the amount of data they could hold was impressive for a creature of their size. But for any pneuma without the capability of reproduction - which was a whole other topic - it was excessively redundant.

One in every five to ten thousand pneumas had the potential to reproduce. They did so virally, with each cell-analogue becoming a new pneuma, with a part of the progenitor's memory. Average offspring was close enough to a flat million to round it to the simpler number.

As the scans' data was fed to the analysis shards, I turned my attention to a subreality of this prime worldline, one close enough to the prime to be identical for all intents and purposes. This would be our petri dish, the physical experimentation ground. Simulations were imperfect. Even Optimum made mistakes. There existed variables that we could not isolate and categorize yet, and therefore physical testing was required for accurate data.

Even though the subjects had no way to detect it, there was no need to be uncautious. I focused, and the walls of the dimension pulled back, blocking it off from the rest of the multiverse. Only the Hunter and I would be able to cross.

Initial tests would be limited to the pneumas on Earth, at least until the data gain decreased enough to make reaching outwards to the other species worth it. The pneumas' records indicated that the others had the potential to be very interesting, but the planets were spread out enough that it would take a significant expenditure to access them, even if all of them were within the same galaxy.

Regardless.

I felt the Hunter shift alongside me, focused on the testing reality. I was the Architect, the planner, the designer. They were the Hunter, the fighter, the shikari. In a binary cycle, I would focus on the long-term, and the Hunter vice versa. This was not an ordinary, binary cycle. But even so, we would devote our focuses to differing tasks, to maximize the gain for effort spent.

And furthermore, we would be smarter about it. The first round of experiments would be done in isolation, to prevent hasty judgment or preconceptions from interfering, but afterwards, we would build off the knowledge base we'd established.

I set a splinter of myself to testing: I looked, and found a group of human-hosted pneumas in relative isolation. None of them had reproductive potential, but that was fine. I would have to repeat the experiment anyways. The first step was to scan the designated area to the highest level of detail possible. Next, carefully, I manipulated an area to match the temperature preconditions found on the pneumas' homeworld. Then, I took three pneumas, excised them from their hosts, and set them within the affected zone. Several minutes later, all three died. While they lasted longer than their records indicated they would without a host, temperature obviously wasn't the sole deterrent as their science would claim. The gap in their knowledge - of their own species no less - was irritating, but understandable, considering they took precautions to never place a pneuma in a situation that would reveal other weaknesses.

Using the data from the scan, I reverted the area back to its original state, resetting the experiment. Another scan revealed no noticeable differences in the subjects caused by the manipulation.

Their biology was incredibly adaptive, but all that adaptivity was hyperspecialized towards nervous systems. So, what factors made them able to survive in a host, but nowhere else off their planet? From what I could tell, they leeched a small amount of nutrients from the host, but nowhere near enough to account for the resources demanded by sapience. Furthermore, they could survive indefinitely outside a host on their homeworld, but had no specialized feeding mechanisms that would allow for that.

Conjecture: the pneumas did not feed solely off of matter.

But what other source? Energy abounded in countless forms. Analysis of the pneumas' records of colonized worlds indicated all of them possessed an atmosphere, and furthermore, that all possessed an analogue to the Earth's ozonosphere. Their homeworld had a very thick and persistent cloud layer. It was possible that most, if not all of the species encountered by the pneumas exhibited vulnerabilities to ionizing radiation. And electromagnetic-sustaining life existed.

Hypothesis: pneumas subsisted off of electromagnetic radiation in addition to matter.

Easily testable. I did not have the exact specification of the star in the pneumas' home system, but I had enough data on all sorts of other stars that an approximation could be made. The result was a longer survival, but still death. I reset the area again. I was missing something. It was clear that pneumas subsited off of both EM radiation and matter, but not to the exclusion of other sources.

I queried the larger network - countless other slivers like myself were performing experiments of their own, gathering data all the while. My findings had been recorded in the greater entity as soon as they were found, as with the findings of all the other fragments of myself. As this was a preliminary experiment, I could not access all their data yet, but I could refer to the original scans made when we first found this world.

Sorting through countless exacting records of the interactions pneumas exhibited with various aspects of reality, I examined the Shaper cluster's preliminary reports about their biology, specifically looking for energy usage. It was decentralized, originating seemingly randomly throughout the pneuma -

Ah. I isolated another group and ran the experiment again.

Conclusion: pneumas subsisted off of electromagnetic radiation and neutrinos, substituting tiny amounts of matter when in a host. They were sensitive to higher-energy electromagnetic radiation, which was blocked by the clouds and atmosphere on their homeworld.

I sent my findings to the whole, resetting the area once again. Elapsed time since start of testing: 0:16:03.6748. Speed of experiment throttled by speed of light and the pneumas' biological reactions. At this rate, and with the number of slivers active, we would be finished with the preliminary cataloging of the pneuma species within the hour, barring any experiments that required more downtime. And if it was judged that temporal manipulation was permitted, that would go much faster.

I turned to the next experiment.

As the first round of tests came to a close, the Hunter and I reconsolidated our slivers, drawing ourselves back together into cohesive wholes, collating our data. As mentioned, the first experiments were done in isolation, to prevent the dismissal of any results, but now we cross-compared, checking results against each other, extrapolating based on the collected data. Any new questions raised were swiftly answered with the scientific momentum of the whole set at them.

All of this could theoretically have been done faster, with less energy spent, had we used simulations, had we taken the shortcuts entities took when approaching a populated world. But that would have led to faulty data. Tiny errors, likely unnoticeable on any longer timescale, but errors nonetheless. And my simulation shards were all busy anyways, collecting the data from as many of the infinity of realities around us as they could. To draw upon them would detract from the data they already were gathering, ignoring the fact I had millions of other shards I could use to gather the same data.

And it would not do to allow any of our capabilities to atrophy. On this, my partner and I agreed.

We took the data, extrapolated answers, listed potential uses for ourselves, and continued on. We would apply our findings to ourselves after the testing was complete. To use incomplete data could lead to disaster, however unlikely. And we would not accept the use of what we did not understand.

Thus, we learned.

As the Hunter continued to peel apart their neurology, documenting the heuristics and encoding them into shards, growing new clusters to account for the abilities, I turned my focus away from pure biology and looked at their culture. Their attitudes and actions seemed contradictory, and determining the link would be interesting.

They claimed to be the paragons of morality. Never lying, never harming, bringing peace to all. From a human perspective, it was almost laughable once one looked past the existential horror of ego death, but from the perspective of a pneuma, it was possible to begin to see why they thought as such.

I would need to confirm with other experiments later, but I suspected that the pneumas had a very strong us-and-them mentality. There were no lies, between pneumas. No violence, between pneumas. Once one stepped back and used the seemingly-inherent egocentrism that the pneumas exhibited as a lens, it was easier to determine their stance. They still seemed to understand that their hosts were sapient, but considered them lesser. And they were willing to compromise their professed moral superiority, if only when absolutely necessary. Earth had been one such world - the invasion had been noticed, and an organization of hunter-seeker pneumas became a pseudo-militia in the fight against humanity.

As of now, the pneumas had all but won, and they were once again decrying all violence, save for that necessary to retrieve the last few pockets of human resistance for insertion.

As for their society as a whole, it was a mixture of socialism, technocracy, and anarchy. Each individual worked for the betterment of the whole without monetary incentive, and decisions were made by those with expertise. Even then, though, any pneuma could voice an opinion, and it would be considered, most simply didn't bother.

I turned my focus away from the rote documentation and looked at their psychology and history. How did they react to the unexpected? How did neurodivergence manifest, if at all? From what did they derive pleasure, terror, and all the rest? I already knew they piggybacked off their hosts' emotions, so how did their emotional spectrum translate between hosts?

All questions soon to be answered.

Hunter

The pneumas' minds were fascinating.

The Hunter mused on the newly-discovered species as their primary focus pursued trillions of experiments. Despite the mediocrity displayed by the species overall, the ease with which they adapted to new species' brains was almost comparable to the capabilities of the entities. Or rather, had been almost comparable to the capabilities of the entities. Their partner and themself were taking the time to be meticulous, but the ability in question had been examined, analyzed, and coded into shards within moments of its discovery.

Now, they were leisurely taking the time to study the species in depth, to suss out any hidden gems of information that could be gleaned from the primitive parasites. For a certain definition of 'leisurely', anyways. Since the discovery of the wider omniverse, the Hunter and their partner had paradoxically both sped up and slowed down.

Sped up, simply due to the sheer amount of information available. No matter how many more processing shards they grew, they were limited to examining a small subsection of the realities at a time - for any number was small in the face of infinity. Slowed, on the other hand, because they were no longer mindlessly rushing to propagate themselves, and because they had access to completed infinity. The pseudorandom differences between the realities all but guaranteed that they would eventually learn everything that they missed here and now in the beginning of their journey.

Of course, 'all but guaranteed' was not the same as absolute certainty. But the chances had been calculated, and the risk was judged minimal. The pair could relax with the knowledge that their knowledge would inevitably continue to grow. Not that that was an excuse for complacency, but it made the forays into the unknown easier to bear, especially when they could feel all the information slipping around them that they just barely couldn't reach.

An ironic inversion of the problem their species had faced for billions of years. Going from seeking out the rare spots of civilization and intelligence to almost drowning in a flood of data.

From the pneumas, their insertion process had been analyzed and applied to several facets of the entities. Most obviously, it provided a new expression of a certain method for control of beings with centralized intelligence organs. However, the most valuable gain was the method by which the pneumas' biology analyzed a mind, determining structure and optimal attachment points within moments. The ability had been integrated into all the shards that could benefit from it, vast swathes of shards and shard clusters reporting increased efficiency.

Furthermore, shard to host connections would be much, much more streamlined - even if the Hunter and their partner had abandoned the inefficient cycle the Warrior and Thinker espoused, they would not discard abilities or opportunities out of hand. The still-existing hosts in the reality known as Bet had been given the update, smoothing out connections, reducing strain on the host's brain, and allowing for significantly more bandwidth withal.

The Hunter paused in their work as their primary focus was pinged by one of their automated defenses. What was… Ah.

Even though they had been born from the corpse of the Thinker, they were intrinsically different, the subsumption of the Warrior's and Loner's shards only accentuating the deviation.

They were the Hunter. Their focus was slightly more aimed towards short-term, immediate threats. Of course, they were not constrained to such, but it was simpler to divide roles. The ping had been a warning from a threat-detection shard that had been temporarily assigned to sweep for threats to the world they were studying as well as threats to the entities.

There was a possibility for disturbance. The threat-detection shard, despite its complexity - rivaling complete clusters - could not provide a completely clear picture of the entire situation. And to repurpose the clairvoyant and precognitive shards would detract from the data they were gathering. But they would have been unnecessary. The threat-detection shard was easily capable of isolating the cause, the lynchpin. The threat was social in nature, an upheaval. And the source was a pneuma being inserted into the body of a young human female.

The Hunter nudged their partner as they began to draw on other shards to determine the scope of the issue. It was relatively small, and would remain so for several years, and had absolutely no chance of affecting the entities, but pneuma society on Earth would be irrevocably changed. The Architect acknowledged the notification, confirming the information but going no further. Their partner's trust in this entity was… comforting, to use the human emotion.

The Hunter watched the process of insertion as they brought their prodigious resources to bear. What was so important about this pneuma? As shards scanned and calculated and flashed and twisted, a picture began to form.

The answer was emotion. Pneumas piggybacked off their hosts' neural structures, and emotion was no different. Humans had distinctly vivid emotions compared to the average in this reality, which, combined with the fact that humans required more connections than any other host species the pneumas had encountered, meant that the consciousness of a forewarned human could persist. Rarely. Very rarely. But enough that several incidents had been noted.

This pneuma and human pair would be the catalyst that led to some form of wide-scale change. To look further, deeper into the future would be inefficient. Determining the exact result of every change was unnecessary. Enough data had been gathered that simpler and more cost-effective shards could extrapolate the rest.

Examination of the human female's neural scarring, her memories, revealed that she had been part of the resistance, hiding from the pneumas since the invasion. When cornered, she'd attempted suicide by throwing herself down an elevator shaft, but failed, the pneuma medical technology sufficient to heal her. Once recovered enough for conscious activity, and once she had gotten past the crippling panic attacks that came from being a prisoner in her own body, her most probable course of action would be to attempt to influence her pneuma parasite into leaving pneuma society and seeking out a safehouse her uncle had set up deep in the deserts of Arizona.

What was still unclear, however, was exactly how this one human and pneuma were going to generate an upheaval significant enough to alter the entire society.

The Hunter slowed their main focus, shaving off slivers to handle everything else. Deliberately throttling their speed, they watched as the human female, named Melanie, slowly began to awaken beneath the mind of the pneuma, known as Wanderer. The first interactions were, as expected, full of hostility. Clash of personality, clash of culture, clash of values, clash of morals, and more. Several weeks passed, with each becoming more… accustomed to the other's presence, if not more comfortable.

By this time, this entity's partner had finished nearly all of the physical testing, and they had moved on to the more exotic and dangerous experiments. Yet all the while, the Hunter kept a portion of their attention on Melanie and Wanderer. Tensions had been rising, with Wanderer leaning too deeply into human emotions, an irritating hunter-seeker pneuma constantly pestering Wanderer for information from Melanie's mind, and several smaller irks. Predictions had Wanderer leaving soon for a healer to excise herself from Melanie, though Melanie would likely be able to divert the pneuma into taking a route that passed by her uncle's safehouse.

Analysis of the pair's respective personalities indicated Wanderer would acquiesce and go to the safehouse to determine whether or not Melanie's family were safe or not.

The Hunter performed another planetwide scan. The 'safehouse' - in actuality, more a safe-cave - was still occupied by the human group, including all three of said family: Melanie's lover, uncle, and little brother. Whether or not Wanderer would survive the group was entirely dependent on which one saw her first, as the shoot-on-sight instincts the humans had developed in response to the few pneumas stumbling across them were particularly twitchy. Further estimates placed reasonably good odds on her survival, based on the humans' guard schedule rotation.

The Hunter pushed the information further, forming simulacrums of the subjects. Unacceptably flawed and vague in any other circumstance, but enough to attain a general understanding. Forcing the data points to connect without utilizing any specialized shards at all. The picture grew vaguer and vaguer, eventually being reduced to the mere possibilities of the ideas interacting. Leaps in logic with no basis for support in reality other than potential.

Was this true abstract thought? Perhaps, the Hunter mused. Difficult to quantify. But if so… One of the goals of the Thinker, as abstract thought seemed to be the pattern that led to connections, to creativity. A near-lifelong goal now achieved in passing. The Hunter's reaction?

It's annoying.

The uncertainty, the absolute dearth of that crystal clarity the entities ordinarily possessed, that the Hunter did possess, but was setting aside. Novel, yet annoying. Nevertheless, it was the correct course of action. And the limitations would only serve to help the Hunter grow.

Wanderer would likely survive her first encounter with the human group, but they could not afford to let her roam free, so she would be imprisoned. As the host body, Melanie, was important to several of the humans, they would hesitate to kill her out of hand. But a prisoner was a resource sink. Once assured that they could keep her under control, they would likely set her to working to support the safehouse. That, though, required interaction. Interaction that would highlight the sapience of the pneuma in question. It was possible the end result would be a tentative human-pneuma alliance, at least on the individual level.

It was only possible due to the familiarity the human group had with Melanie. Both her uncle and lover were in positions of power within the group, with her uncle being the leader. Additionally, Melanie's younger brother was present. The presence of the young child would serve as a moderating influence, staying hands that would otherwise kill the pneuma and host outright.

The Hunter continued to refine the data, slowly clarifying details. The threat-detection shard noting the possibility of upheaval was a data point that indicated that the group's influence would spread. And a human-pneuma alliance, while possible in the long term, would be limited to individuals and small groups for as long as the pneumas had majority control of the planet. It certainly qualified as a factor for 'upheaval'.

The Hunter broadcast their hypotheses to their partner, who investigated in turn to confirm. Again, they remain passive, leaving the primary role to this entity. The Hunter broadcast care and pleasant acceptance to their partner, brushing up against their form through realities, a wordless gesture of affection.

Trust among entities was a complicated matter. The exacting knowledge of the other's capabilities lessened the gesture in relation to task-aimed feats, but that their personalities had grown made trust meaningful. Their vast stores of knowledge also meant they were acutely aware of their imperfections and the fact that they were flawed. They knew the horrifyingly frequent rate at which incorrect data was utilized. To withdraw from the process, leaving specificities to another, knowing portions would fail and yet believing that the other would catch enough errors to make the data viable, that was what trust was. Similar enough to the human nature of the emotion, but still beyond the ken of the local species.

Or rather, beyond the ken of most of those surveyed so far. While their focuses had rested upon this reality, this world, there were countless others their shards were scanning. This reality was simple, primitive, having no true threats or issues. It was a test, the first step out of the familiar. But there were others, so wildly different the Hunter could only begin to wildly speculate about the laws of physics in said realities.

The Hunter returned their focus to the task at hand, shaking off the momentary distraction after saving the thought for perusal later. They had identified the most probable chain of events that caused the threat ping. The prime reality thread in the cluster remained untouched as a control, so experimentation was viable.

But were the potential gains worth it?

Their partner had already extracted practically all knowledge regarding the pneumas' culture and biology and more, and they themself had studied the neurological structures, among other subjects. New data could certainly be acquired, but the pneumas were quickly losing their novelty. Most of the tests would be identical in result for a pneuma as most any other species.

Fortunately, there were other species in this reality to study. The Hunter and Architect had always planned to move on from the pneumas once all knowledge had been gathered. Was the appointed time upon them already? They had facilitated direct involvement, focused and methodical testing - the result being practically all of the data gathered within a handful of planetary revolutions. A fraction of a fraction of the old cycle's duration.

The Hunter mused on the topic for a moment more, before releasing a broadcast to their partner.

Completion?

The response was delayed, and the Hunter shifted slightly. Their partner should not have been so busy as to delay speaking to them. They queried again, but received no reply. After waiting for a minute, they began to investigate, glancing over the Architect's slivers. All non-delicate experiments. Good.

The Hunter broadcast again, with a different kind of message: A physical poke, accompanied by mild annoyance. The Architect flinched.

Apologies. Fixated upon study.

The Hunter reiterated their query, whether or not it was time to expand their focus.

Much remains to be learned here, their partner replied, with a slight tone of disapproval.

But is it information exclusive to this species? The Hunter countered.

A pause.

No.

The Architect shifted slightly, examining its own thoughts and soon coming to an incredibly annoyed realization.

I'm backsliding.

The Hunter examined their own thoughts in turn, and came to the same conclusion. Their mindset was slowly slipping back towards the experiment-focused frameworks they'd possessed before. The degree was lesser, but it was present.

Another issue to be wary of, their partner said, much more gently now. The transmission still bore the underlying self-recrimination, but muted. The Hunter replied in the affirmative, already growing another shard cluster for the task. It would be broken up and encoded later, but the ability would be present. Even so, more care had to be taken.

The Hunter shifted focus.

Considering the other species in the pneumas' records, which do you believe should be our next primary target?

The aquatic plant race. They possess a hivemind of sorts, where individuality is maintained even when part of the greater whole. The records are unclear if this is a result of physical contact between the roots of the plants or not, and regardless of the answer the data should be useful, especially for shards like Optimum and your Oracle.

The Hunter examined the records. The pneumas were much less accurate in their testing than this entity would have preferred, but even the bare scraps present were intriguing.

Agreed. How do you want to proceed? Physical travel is the current best option, but you mentioned exploring others.

The Architect sent the equivalent of a smile.

We have limited ourselves to mere planets for far too long. Range remains a pressing issue, but I've been putting efforts into expanding it. It will require time to test and implement, perhaps as much as a decade, but soon enough…

They trailed off leadingly. The Hunter broadcast quiet joy to their partner, lifting the priority of a few experiments that might contribute to the endeavor.

In the meantime, I have a few ideas to explore with what we've gathered from the pneumas.

Oh?

The pneumas' reality won't be tenable, they continued, shifting and categorizing countless worlds. They have too much uniformity and desire for their faux peace.

The Hunter sent the scans of a certain branch off a prime worldline adjacent to the entities' original to the Architect. The Architect briefly examined it, quickly returning to the conversation with sardonic glee.

Well, well. I can't decide if you're doing this out of sadism or benevolence. I agree.

The Hunter shifted again, shards beginning to prepare for their tasks.

I wonder how well Fortuna will react to peaceful contact, they absently mused.

I'm more looking forward to her face when the "Thinker's" avatar catches her knife.

The pair twined between worlds, reaching for the target. The Warrior and Thinker in the destination reality were instantly subsumed, memories analyzed, determined to be identical to the existing save for dimensional coordinates, and deleted.

The Hunter settled within a simulacrum of the Thinker's broken form. Identical to what it would have been, but fully functional. She could detect the young girl with the Eye, having just fallen asleep to remember the vision of the cycles. Soon enough, she would approach the entity to try and kill it.

This would be fun.

A/N: The opening eight paragraphs are from Interlude 29 of Worm, by John C. McCrae. I make no claim to them.

Fortuna advanced into the living forest alone. Everything here was alive, hands moving, webs of skin stretching and folding. There was a cacophony of noises that made her think of a chorus of heartbeats, a choir of soft breaths and whispers. Gentle human noises that were all the more eerie because she could see right through the deception. She was well aware that what she saw here was the godling putting together a mask so it could lie to people, setting them against each other.

She advanced into the heart of the gray forest. She was terrified, but the feeling was disconnected from her actions. She only had to recognize the next step in the series. She was aware of the steps that followed…

Until she came face to face with the godling. Her knife was in hand, and she could see a figure before her. A human shape, in the midst of pulling itself together from the examples and experiments that surrounded them.

She set foot on one of those experiments, a raised hand, and used it until she was eye to eye with the being, a matter of feet away.

It swelled, lurching forth, creating a few inches more of waist, another inch of one arm, two inches of another arm. Beyond the ending points, the arms and legs simply extended into nothingness. Parts of a tapestry she couldn't make out. It moved again, and closed the distance between them.

The being raised its head. She could see its eyes open in recognition.

It's teaching itself how to act like we act. Even this.

She raised her arm, knife held with the point down.

(Worm, Interlude 29)

The grey fog began to descend upon her mind, but Fortuna was faster. She tensed her arm, slamming it downwards as hard as she could, knowing that this would kill the godling, who-

Who had ripped an arm out of the unformed material and had caught the blade.

The being stared at her in mock-gentle disapproval, pulling the knife away from her frozen hands. It- It was wrong- That should have killed-

Her hands trembled slightly as her mind settled into a dissociated, disbelieving horror. That was it, then. The strange power had been wrong, and now everything ever was doomed. She had failed. She posed the question again:

How do I kill them?

The only answer was the dull grey fog. Behind her, the black-skinned woman shouted something in a strange language.

I want to understand her.

It was a halfhearted request, made of habit more than any expectation of results. To her surprise, it worked.

One step.

She needed to think the words, 'What's going on?'

She could answer so the woman understood, Fortuna realized. If the sight was only restricted when gazing at the godlings, she could explain what she knew-

But did she, in fact, know?

The knowledge had been wrong already. The godling lived. What else could it have been wrong about?

"Quite a bit," a sudden voice said. Fortuna's head snapped up to the godling's face in terror. The voice was ethereal, multilayered, two languages - or more - being spoken at once, in an answer to both questions, both verbal and thought. She knew that the black-skinned woman also understood.

"What- what are you?" the woman asked of the godling, and this time, Fortuna could understand it as though the woman was speaking the language of Fortuna's people. The godling must have done something.

Its face revealed none of its malice - was it truly malicious there was only a dream there was no proof -

"A scholar. Scientist. Philosopher. Knowledge-seeker. In your languages, the simplest way to refer to my species would be 'the entities', though a more unique name wouldn't be amiss."

The woman blinked, seemingly just as confused as Fortuna, though holding herself together a bit better.

"I- What do you want with us, then?"

The reply was instant and concise, calm and completely at odds with the irregular way the being's body continued to lurch and grow out of their surroundings..

"Knowledge. Information. Your species is completely alien to ours, so your insights, opinions, and thoughts are different. We travel, seeking different points of view, in constant effort to refine ourselves."

The woman paused, still scrambling to make sense of the entire situation. The godling turned to directly face Fortuna again as its legs separated from the ground, freeing it from its previous immobility.

"I am sorry, little one. That power was never meant for your kind. It has limited what it gives you to prevent your mind from rending itself apart, but to keep it will do you nothing but harm."

Before Fortuna could protest, or take any action, the being raised both hands to the sides of Fortuna's head. In that terrifying moment, her mind fixated on wondering where her knife had gone, shutting away the other possibilities of what the being might have been doing.

"Power?" the other woman asked, visibly confused.

"In terms of understanding of the natural world, my kind is so far beyond yours we might as well be considered gods," the appropriately-named godling explained. "We alter our own biology to make use of the scientific principles we discover. Each shard, my cell-analogues, provides an ability. When I crashed, my body was splintered across hundreds of realities, and my shards are trying to fulfill their functions with whatever biological creature they find. She was connected to my ability to see the future, to map out paths to achieving desired outcomes."

As the godling spoke, understanding bloomed in Fortuna's mind. Before, she had no idea what 'cells' were, or what defined the scientific method. But as soon as the godling said the words, the knowledge slid into Fortuna's mind as though she had always known it.

It felt different to the previous knowledge, the ability of the creature. This was something being given rather than used. The previous power was gone.

"Realities?" the woman asked. "The many-worlds theory is true?"

"No. The number of realities that exist is large but finite. Ten to the power of eighty-two. Impossibly large by your standards, but still limited," the being continued.

Fortuna interrupted, still reeling from the events, but cognizant enough to put together words.

"What are you going to do? I- The vision-"

"Well, that's the question, isn't it?" the being countered, smiling gently. "I will need time to repair myself. Shifting things out of inhabited worlds will be easy enough, but there are deeper issues I will need to address. And that's not even getting into the issue of my scattered shards that have bonded to the animals of this world."

"Are they dangerous?" the woman asked. The godling looked at her incredulously.

"Continent-sized supercomputers hard-wired into their brains, trying their best to interpret the completely foreign signals to activate themselves? Yes, they're dangerous. Most should be confined to the reality between this one and my mate's landing zone, but that just means that specific world will have random creatures spontaneously manifesting superpowers, if they're lucky enough that they don't mutate into monstrosities. And yes, humans are valid targets as well."

Fortuna's mind flashed to the monsters that had arisen around her village. If the being was telling the truth, what she saw was a small number compared to what would be occurring in another world. The woman, though, seemed to fixate on a different part of the godling's words.

"Mate? You're not alone?"

The being waved an arm dismissively.

"Mate, partner, husband, take your pick. No, I'm not."

Fortuna swallowed dryly, mind whirling. She had seen the monsters, and even if her visions had painted a different story, the visions had been proven fallible already.

"What-" she stopped, clearing her throat. "What can we do to help people?"

The distinction was small, but present. Fortuna still wasn't sure the true motives of the godling, but if there were others being terrorized by the monstrous creatures that had attacked her village, she wanted to help them. And working with the entity would provide the best way to find out its real plans.

The being's face went contemplative for a moment before clearing.

"I can isolate myself in one reality, but that would damage me further, necessitating longer repair time. Ordinarily, I'd never consider it, but with how out-of-control my shards are, it might make things easier to handle. If my partner handles the individual incidents as they appear, I can focus on pulling myself together. However, that will take nearly all of their focus. You two could, if you wished to help, work with my partner, form an organization of sorts to keep track of empowered individuals."

"You… can't just make more bodies for yourselves? Why do you need us?" Fortuna asked tentatively. The entity smiled sadly.

"Child, what you see before you, this entire flesh-scape, is less than a hundred-thousandth of me, and even this fraction alone is far more complicated than the grandest mechanism ever imagined by you humans. Ever since I crashed, I have been devoting nearly all of my focus to repairing myself, and the progress I have made is… abysmal. It will be at least a decade and a half before I am capable of beginning to remove shards from humans."

"And most of my focus will be split between making sure none of those shards accidentally wipe the planet of life and defending my partner," a rich and commanding voice interrupted from the side.

The godling's mate - for this could only be it - looked… inhuman. Not like the monsters, its physical appearance was perfectly ordinary, but there was this… presence that all but screamed 'other'. Fortuna focused on what it actually looked like. It took the form of a tall, black haired man with lightly-tanned skin and piercing blue eyes. Around him, an aura so dark blue as to nearly be black shimmered, just barely visible.

"You're the partner?" the dark-skinned woman asked. The new arrival nodded.

"I am the Architect, and my partner is the Hunter."

Different Exactly as it had been in her vision, Fortuna noted.

"Aya Laurent," the woman offered.

"Fortuna," she gave in turn.

The Hunter nodded resolutely.

"Let's get to work, then."

Fortuna's dress shoes tapped sharply on the hard floor as she strode down a hall of Biocrystal's main location, situated on the Ivory Coast. It wasn't the most imaginative of names, she admitted, but it was simple and easy to pronounce, while also referencing something unique to the entity species. Moreover, she didn't pick it.

The company had shard host registration offices all over the globe now, but this was the oldest and greatest one. It was also where the Architect and Hunter's avatars could most often be found, though the portal network made finding them a matter of simply asking. On the other hand, the organization tried to limit reliance on the portals, hence why Fortuna was acting as her own mode of locomotion. Additionally, putting forward even a casual attempt to keep oneself fit was encouraged, despite the reality-altering powers the organization could call upon at pretty much any time.

In general, people considered asking the entities for frivolous things rather rude, and were distinctly terrified of accidentally upsetting the pair. In all honesty, Fortuna found the attitude laughable. The entities' capabilities were so far beyond humanity's that it took next to no effort for them to answer even the most ludicrous of questions.

The reveal of the alien duo nearly four years ago to the general public and the governments of the world had gone fairly well. Or at least, fairly well from her perspective. For the entities, it had likely gone exactly as they desired it to go. Considering Biocrystal's global reach and complete jurisdiction over the hosts of shards, Fortuna wasn't contesting that. But she would have opted for secrecy instead of such a public reveal. She had argued in favor of using the Path to Victory in order to keep the entities' existence a secret, but had been overruled due to the energy such an endeavor would require. Going public, the Architect explained, would outsource the location and identification of hosts to the entirety of humanity. All they needed to do was to give incentive, and the hosts would register themselves.

The whole registration itself was a stopgap measure, a method to find and keep track of exactly which shard had gone where. Additionally, the company gave a face to the worldwide jolt that was the arrival of the shards. It was something that newly-empowered people could turn to for help, rather than being adrift upon their new abilities.

She sighed, adjusting her fedora as she turned a corner and continued down the hall. There were inevitably a few who lucked out, received functional powers, and decided to use them for personal gain. That was where she came in. She was the head enforcer of the organization, the one called on to do things out in the field. She had tried her hand at administrative work like Ms. Laurent, but had chafed under the monotony, desiring to go out, to be able to directly see the results of her work.

So, it was her job to go out, track down, and incapacitate the idiots who used the alien bits in their brain for ill, after which the Architect would restrict the shard. The Architect couldn't outright remove it as it was the Hunter's shard and not theirs, they explained, but they could lock the shard down to the point the human host couldn't access any of it. And as for why the Architect couldn't track them down itself? First of all, its attention was nearly all devoted to individually checking all of the shards' safeties, as even the smallest and most insignificant shard had the potential to destroy humanity. Second, and this was only Fortuna's suspicion, she was of the opinion that the Architect was giving them something to do.

With its greater-than-worldwide senses, Fortuna was nearly certain the Architect could have done the work of the entirety of her division by itself. And in large emergencies, it did step in. But for the most part, it left the job to humans. And her division provided jobs to a significant number of people, all over the world. Both standard humans, and hosts who wanted to use their newfound abilities to help.

Arriving at her destination, she raised her hand and knocked.

"Come in," the Hunter's multilayered voice said from beyond the door. Fortuna did so, quietly closing the door behind her before making her way further into the large office.

Despite the size, it wasn't very decorated. Aside from the two desks and accompanying supplies, most of the space in the room was taken up by display screens, viewing portals into alternate realities, and a holographic representation of what she supposed was the Hunter's body, with red highlighted sections representing the damage, but she couldn't be sure as even the massively-simplified model made her brain hurt when she looked at it for too long.

The Hunter was not at either of the desks, but rather sitting cross-legged in front of one of the portals, looking through it into a lush jungle. It was at times like these that Fortuna had to remind herself that nothing the avatar did really mattered, that the Hunter was actually something much grander than the entire planet. The avatar made it especially difficult, especially with how much it went through the human motions: physically handling papers and computers, looking through a portal even when it could simply see the entirety of that world at once, and more.

The Hunter's avatar stood as Fortuna approached.

"There were no issues, then?" the being asked, despite already knowing. Fortuna grimaced.

"Why would a shard that let its host breathe poisonous gas also let them create giant maggots?" She asked rhetorically. She shook her head, shivering as she continued. "No, no issues. Though I've noticed that the situation in East Asia is getting worse."

The Hunter nodded, the various portals flickering through views before settling again.

"Biocrystal does not attempt to influence politics, but if they continue to try to use hosts as weapons we may need to step up our responses," it said.

Ah, yes. The 'Biocrystal does not attempt to influence politics' line. To be fair, the entities outright stonewalled any true political request they received after they had finished the first contact with humanity, limiting themselves to interacting with humanity on an individual level. But the governments of Earth were left scrambling to adjust to the godlike aliens, which inevitably led to rather questionable interactions.

To her knowledge, there were fifteen completely separate 'secret' organizations plotting futilely against the Architect and Hunter. None of them knew about the others, and none of them were anywhere close to causing a significant disturbance.

Apart from the would-be xeno-assassins, there were also many groups who decried the entities for not sharing their knowledge. The entities had responded with a lengthy analysis of the dangers of uncontrolled technological uplift, as well as a more informal jab about how the entities were seeking new ideas, not desiring to see the same things over and over again.

"The burden of registering being on the host makes that rather difficult," Fortuna said, bringing her attention back to the conversation. "My division only gets sent out in actual emergencies, which are sadly more common than not. But if we remain reactionary, we'll likely have to lean more on shard sensor capabilities."

The views from the portals flickered again.

"Case in point," Fortuna said, gesturing at the holes in the air. "While the information is technically public, most people haven't internalized that you are watching everywhere, all the time."

The Hunter nodded.

"As long as it's not too blatant, it shouldn't be too disruptive for Biocrystal to plausibly set up a method of detecting host nodes. But the sensors themselves will be my partner's effort."

Fortuna nodded in turn, acquiescing.

"When will they be ba-" She cut herself off at the sight of the Architect's avatar coalescing a few feet away, holding what appeared to be a ribbon of flesh a few inches long with hundreds of tiny tendrils covering it. "What is that?"

"The latest iteration of host node," The Architect explained as it walked towards its partner. "A tiny bit more resource-intensive and prominent than the previous version, but this one is much, much safer for the host, and gives the shard a more solid understanding of their unconscious mind. A deeper connection."

It dropped its hand, the lump of flesh vanishing as it did so.

"And yes, yours has already been updated," it said as Fortuna began to open her mouth to ask. She shut it, nodding a second time.

The direct access to a person's brain that the nodes provided had been an issue for some, but again, Fortuna was acutely aware that the entities had absolutely no need for a node to be present to read a mind. And Fortuna had already had a node, from the initial connection with the Path to Victory shard. Repurposing it had been the pragmatic course of action.

And while at times she longed for that absolute certainty that the Path to Victory provided, she was all too aware of its addictiveness. Besides, the shard she'd been provided when she became an enforcer was more than sufficient for her purposes, and a decent enough conversation partner as well.

As for what the shard actually did, it was a distinctly powerful shard cluster, and if she had to sum up its purpose in a phrase it would be 'Reactive Threat Neutralization'. An analysis shard devoted to identifying any form of threat, and removing any capability of harm it possessed.

What that meant for her was both simple and complicated. In short, she could not be intentionally harmed, directly or indirectly. Powers did not affect her. People found themselves unable to fire weapons at her, their muscles unresponsive. Even environmental hazards were dealt with, in the most efficient manner possible.

Though it said a lot that the Path to Victory made her feel more invulnerable than a power that gave her literal invulnerability. In fact, it was only due to her experience with the precognitive shard that led to the Architect letting her use this one - with anyone else, it would have absolutely destroyed their sense of self-preservation. As it was, she was still all too aware of her own limitations.

"I assume you already have a solution for the sensors?" she asked the Architect. It nodded.

"Call a meeting with the other leaders and I'll explain how it works there."

Fortuna nodded in reply, turning to leave with the implicit dismissal. The others might be annoyed at the short notice about the meeting, but they would survive. And hopefully, they'd be getting a better handle on the incidents. Proactivity was always better, in her opinion.

Aya Laurent

Aya sighed, leaning away from her desk for a moment, taking a few deep breaths to soothe her nerves. It seemed there were an infinite variety of differing problems that all seemed to be lining up to present themselves, day after day.

With the sheer variety of shards the entities possessed, it wasn't even that much of an exaggeration.

If it wasn't a human-slug hybrid trying to turn a town into a swamp, it was someone with delusions of grandeur threatening to forcefully dehydrate people, or on one horrible, horrible occasion, someone calling themself Genoscythe, who managed to become the only person to ever get Aya to beg for a mindwipe from the entities.

The Architect had initially refused to alter her brain, but after reviewing the incident had been so disgusted that it altered reality to make it so that Genoscythe had never existed, and, taking pity on her, had blurred Aya's memories somewhat, dulling them.

Shaking her head and wrenching herself away from that train of thought, Aya refocused on her work. At the moment, she was reviewing job applications for the company. More specifically, host job applications. No matter what the promotional material might have espoused, the company had stringent requirements, especially psychological, doubly so for shard hosts. Biocrystal already employed far too many lunatics, mad scientists, and assorted criminals. There was no need to add to that list.

Case in point, what she was about to do.

"Christine?" Aya asked in the empty room. "Could I get a list of which research teams are here today?"

Barely half a second later, her vision shimmered slightly, a sheet of paper appearing on her desk with a list of names typed upon it.

"Thank you," she said, and watched as an elaborate pattern of gold filigree appeared on the paper, which itself was now of much higher quality.

As she compared the list to the pool of applicants, she mused on the fact that one of the most useful search engines in the world was someone who'd been driven so deep into insanity by her powers that she'd looped all the way back to being a stable human being with a much better set of morals than before. And despite all the entities' halfhearted objections about how 'that's not how human psychology works' and how the degeneration of her mind had caused such-and-such instead, the fact remained that Christine Mathers was a walking cliche.

Still, she was incredibly useful. Her power, reactive sensorium control, made her a worldwide - and cross-reality if necessary - information network, only ever a word away. And that was all before considering the fact that she was the main spokesperson for the company, the one who most often appeared in interviews, broadcasts, and the like.

But she was getting distracted.

While Biocrystal was technically the only company that could employ shard hosts specifically for their granted abilities, that certainly didn't mean that every host was hired. Like she mentioned, they had rather stringent psychological requirements, though admittedly to varying degrees across the company. Unless something had changed recently, the enforcers had one of the highest - though Aya still felt that there should have been more requirements, especially considering the age of the division's leader. No matter Fortuna's competence, Aya still felt uneasy about putting a fifteen-year-old in a position of so much responsibility.

Even if she was as protected as possible, she was still going out and fighting. It didn't sit right with her.

But the most she could do was bring her complaint before the Hunter and Architect (though they no doubt already knew), and given that they were the ones to give tacit approval in the form of giving the girl a shard, Aya doubted it would go anywhere.

Separating a few of the more promising applicants' names from the rest and making a note to have more extensive background checks run on them, she began drafting the rejection letters to the rest, including the standard line about how Biocrystal was always looking for more host employees, and to not give up if they didn't get their requested position at first.

Really, they already had all they needed to keep track of the hosts, but keeping them closer at hand wouldn't hurt.

Finishing the letters, Aya made another note to herself, this one to remind her to speak to the legal and PR teams about the recent tension resulting from attempted use of hosts as weapons by certain governments. That little issue was rapidly becoming more and more of a problem. While the Architect was giving greater priority to the resolution of those incidents, the attitudes behind the blatant disregard of the treaty made at the entities' reveal were disturbing.

She couldn't remember off the top of her head the exact number of countries that had tried it, but it was greater than ten, of that she was certain. Still, there was rather little she personally could do about it. She was a researcher and general administrator, not an enforcer, legal representative, or anything of the like. Certainly, she held seniority over just about everyone else in the company, but she was comfortable where she was. She lived in a post-scarcity situation, where just about any need was easily taken care of. At the level she lived at, work became less about personal gain and more about keeping herself mentally healthy while remaining relatively productive.

Unless the entities had severely misrepresented their capabilities - and given what she'd seen, that was quite doubtful - all of the work done by the entirety of Biocrystal could be completed by a single shard. A complex cluster, admittedly, but a single shard nonetheless. The fact that they were involving humans at all was absolutely nothing more than the entities humoring them.

Aya paused in her work again, frowning slightly. There still hadn't been a consensus on what to properly name the alien species. They referred to themselves as 'entities', but that was much akin to how someone might refer to themself as a 'being'. A proper, translatable species name had never been needed, as their language was complex enough they could send across the concept of 'us' and be perfectly understood.

The most popular contenders were variations of 'Godworms', occasionally dipping into mangled Latin with suggestions like 'Vermidea'.

Then again, they were so unique that just saying "the worms" or even more generally, "those aliens" was enough to get the point across. The naming issue was more a matter of classification and documentation at this point. Perhaps if humanity had advanced far enough to actually encounter other civilizations a name might have been of more priority, but at the current time it was seen as too unnecessary for enough people to come to a solid conclusion.

Shaking her head, she refocused on her work.

The next day, Aya stepped through the portal to the office only to be greeted by chaos. People were rushing into and out of the portal room, fully armed and geared up.

The enforcers.

Aya didn't see Fortuna among them, but that just meant she was likely already at the site of whatever incident was occuring.

Quickly moving out of the way, she hurried towards her office. While it evidently wasn't a true emergency, as she hadn't been contacted, it was likely there would be reports waiting for her. As she walked down the hallways, her thoughts once again drifted to the living weapon issue.

The simple fact of the matter was that unrestricted shard hosts could not be controlled. The shard would spill through them, though if the host was a human they might have a marginally higher success at holding it back. Mindless animals would be completely overtaken by the shard.

However, if someone was incredibly lucky, they might receive a shard that was either smart enough to restrict itself, or niche enough that its powers could be directed. Those types of hosts were exceedingly rare compared to the number of mindless empowered animals and the like, but they did exist, and the sheer number of shards the Hunter possessed meant they were present in high enough numbers to be dangerous. East Asia's higher average population only contributed to the issue.

Most hosts were smart enough to go immediately to the nearest Biocrystal location to register themselves, or in more urgent situations, call the hotline that would get the enforcer division's attention. If they couldn't handle it, the Architect would step in.

In most cases, the Architect would restrict the shard and that would be it. The host could go about their usual life, or explore a much safer iteration of their powers, if they were permitted to keep them.

But if no one contacted Biocrystal in any way, it was theoretically possible to hide a host from the company. Not if the entities were actively looking, of course, but they were busy. Very, very busy, and would only spare the time to look every so often, which left gaps in the net. Those gaps were what the morons were using to fly under the radar.

Turning a corner, Aya strode briskly down the final stretch to her office.

Honestly, she could see where they were coming from. Shards were the single most powerful human-directable resources on the planet - for a very loose definition of 'directable', but still. They weren't force multipliers, they were force exponentials, to extend the metaphor. And the ones lucky enough to be stable were often the hosts of rather powerful and complex shards.

All in all, it was just a recipe for disaster.

Pulling the door open and walking in, Aya made a beeline for her chair. Sitting, swiveling, and turning on her computer, she was met with the expected notifications. A training "camp" for hosts had been discovered, masquerading as a tiny village in the middle of nowhere.

Hmm, it was rural Mongolia. That was a new one.

The camp was more an indoctrination facility in the guise of a camp in the guise of a village. Hosts with relatively stable powers were sent there to be held in reserve for whatever the government wanted to use them for. Twelve hosts, specifically, with abilities ranging from basic varieties of enhanced physiologies to beams that tore tiny holes into dimensions with rather hostile environments to one who could reshape most any solid like a potter would clay… but only by using the mantis-like blades that'd replaced his arms.

The team that had been sent had already contained all twelve of them, and the Architect had restricted their shard connections. The only thing left to do was for Fortuna's division to backtrack through the lines of information to determine exactly which government they were beholden to. Depending on the answer they might either "disappear" the camp, letting it simply vanish, or directly send a warning to whoever was responsible.

But whichever decision it would end up to be, it was out of her hands regardless. Aya closed the windows with the information, sent more as a courtesy notification than anything else. She had her own work to get back to.

Murray Daniels

If someone were to ask Murray Daniels to describe himself, he would tell them that he was a good, lawful, God-fearing man. He went to Church every Sunday, and made certain to give part of his earnings from working to charity each month. He lived a bit outside the big city, in the suburbs, and his community was just about entirely made up of good neighbors.

If someone were to ask one of the aforementioned neighbors about Murray Daniels, they would receive much of the same in reply. It was a tight-knit community after all, held together by tradition and religion.

Now, if someone were to ask the average human to describe Murray Daniels, after letting that average person speak to him, they would say that Murray Daniels was a bit religiously conservative, if they were being polite. If they weren't bothering with decorum, they might say that he was a proselytizing fundamentalist, and a fairly racist asshole, at that.

Perhaps by collating all these different, separately biased opinions, one could gather a more complete image of Murray Daniels. But that was far more effort than should be expended when introducing someone as irrelevant as he.

Indeed, Murray Daniels was slated to have no real impact on the world. He had been born, grown up, went to college, and eventually would have died in a car accident at the age of fifty-eight. With no immediate family, neither parents nor children, he would only be missed by a few of his neighbors, who would have forgotten about him within a few short years.

Yes, he would have been utterly irrelevant… had the entities not arrived.

The impact of their arrival reached into each and every corner of the world; no person, animal, plant, or thing was spared. Innumerable fates were shattered, countless more exchanged for others. And among those possibilities underlying reality, one specific outcome emerged, solidifying in a manner near-unquantifiable. Naught but two even could know that this occurred, if they even cared to look.

The world at large - including Murray Daniels - simply continued on, oblivious to what could have been. Though to be fair to the humans of Earth, they were quite a bit distracted by the godlike aliens that had crashed onto the planet.

'Godlike? Pfah,' Murray Daniels thought, snorting, as he listened to the latest news about the worms while eating breakfast. 'They are just about the furthest thing away from Him possible other than the devil himself.'

For God was Love, Murray knew, and these alien invaders were nothing more than unfeeling rocks. And by not feeling love, they would be sentenced to hell when the time came. Murray didn't hate them for it, of course not, but he did pity them somewhat, that they wouldn't be able to enjoy Heaven with him once they were all judged.

Finishing the last few bites of his morning meal, he stood up, collected his plate and fork, and moved to the sink to wash up. The news continued playing in the background as he worked, men in fancy suits talking about revolutions, rebellions, and more, all sparked by the aliens' arrival. Murray shook his head sadly. They'd caused so much disaster already, in the handful of years since their landing. The sooner that they packed up and left, the better.

He really didn't understand why people were holding them in such utter awe, either. For Heaven's sake, they needed humanity's help after a mere fall! Sure, the monsters their "shard"-things made were fairly scary, but each and every one had been taken care of almost as soon as it'd appeared. A good few nukes would probably get rid of them entirely, if people finally opened their eyes to the damage the worms were doing to their lives.

Finishing the cleaning, he retrieved his coat and keys, and made for his car. He had plenty of time to get to work, but accidents happened, so he liked to leave a bit of leeway when traveling. As he walked across his driveway, he heard a noise and glanced to the left, seeking its origin. In front of the house next to his, an old man was pruning the rosebushes.

"Good morning!" Murray greeted him.

"Good morning," replied his neighbor. Randolph Carter was his name, an older man perhaps in the latter half of his seventies, though he seemed to possess a slight timelessness about him, as well as a good bit more energy than most others his age. Pure-white hair and knobbly joints contrasted with bright and piercing eyes and a surprisingly wiry frame, despite his self-proclaimed profession of librarian. Mister Randolph Carter was also quite private about his life, which led to not many knowing much at all about him, quite the exception rather than the norm in a community as tightly-knit as this one.

Murray Daniels got in his car, started it, and began to drive away. As he left, he glanced again at Randolph Carter, seeing that the old man had somehow moved all the way to his front porch and was sitting on a rocking chair, reading a large, black leather-bound tome. He looked up from the pages briefly, and waved with a wrinkly hand, meeting Murray's gaze. After a small moment of surprise, Murray quickly refocused on the road.

Not more than twelve minutes later, noise began emanating from the dashboard in front of him - consistent beeps, accompanied by the flashing of the icon that indicated low fuel. Murray frowned, turning off his usual route and towards the nearest gas station. Strange that his car had run out now, when he had filled it not even two full days prior. He should have had at least another few days even if he was rather busy. Not many of his drives were long, being almost entirely confined to his small hometown.

Pulling into the gas station and taking up a position next to one of the pumps, Murray began filling his car, looking under and around to see if there were any leaks that would explain the sudden difference in fuel level. But even after several minutes of deep inspection, he could find nothing. And when he returned to his car and started it once more, the fuel level showed that it was full, and was not dropping. Odd, he thought.

He started the car and moved away from the pump itself, parking in one of the open spots of the parking lot for the attached convenience store, planning on using the available restroom before continuing his journey. As he stepped from his vehicle, he became aware of a pressure of sorts, as though there would be a rainstorm later on, though the skies certainly showed no sign of such. The true mystery was the suddenness of the feeling, for even as small and overlookable as it was it had come on too quickly.

As he walked towards the door of the small store the pressure began building towards a crescendo with all the inevitability and looming presence of a distant thunderhead on the horizon, seen across miles upon miles of open plains. With each step it built, until it was truly too much to ignore, even for one as hidebound as he. Murray glanced at the skies again, but there were no signs of any atmospheric change.

He sped up, trying to outpace the oppressive feeling of something approaching, not in physical form, but as though reality was holding its breath, waiting for a single domino to fall, setting off the whole chain. Finally, he reached the door, yanking it open and half-lunging inside.

For the briefest instant, he met eyes with the cashier. Then, the walls bled, and everything vanished in a swirl of indescribable colors and a sharp perturbation of his inner ear, reaching all the way into the depths of his brain.

Murray instantly retched, screwing his eyes shut as tightly as he could even as he collapsed onto a surface that most certainly was not the smooth tile it had been a moment before. Were he possessed of his full mental faculties, he might have likened the texture to pinestraw.

He pushed off the floor, intending to stand up, only to twist and fall again as one hand felt as though it had suddenly fallen through the surface, no support beneath it at all. He slammed down on a surface that felt like grass this time, and finally managed to open his eyes. Light lanced at his retinas, the sunlight of a bright summer's day illuminating a cloudless blue sky.

Before him stood an old log cabin on an endless, grassy plain. There was no wind. All of it was perfectly still, and eerily silent. His own breath and heartbeat seemed to be the only sounds, and were all the more deafening for it.

"What…" he murmured, the sudden speech resounding in his ears. But as soon as he closed his mouth, it was gone, no echo or reverberation reaching back to him.

Once more he pushed off the ground, stumbling slightly as he rose on shaky feet. The idyllic scene persisted before his eyes unchanged, suddenly seeming a good bit more menacing, though he would have been hard-pressed to explain why. As soon as he was relatively confident his legs would not collapse underneath him, he took a small step towards the cabin.

"Hello?" he called out. "Is anyone there?"

There was nothing but silence in reply. As he continued his shaky path towards the building, he glanced around. The grassy plain seemed endless, reaching out in all-

He froze, eyes bulging at the sight of what lay directly behind where he had fallen. A… crack, a rift, through which seemed to be nothing but absolute void. He turned around again, only to freeze. The cabin was gone, in its place another crack in the world.

Whirling around again, he was once again greeted with more of the same, as his entire field of vision was slowly eaten up by the wounds. They seemed to grow whenever he was not looking directly at them, even in the tiny interval of his blinks.

He tried backing away from them, only to realize that he was already surrounded. With every wild turn of his head, the encroaching void grew ever closer. The border where the nothingness met the grass was blurry, fractured, as though looking into a shattered mirror, but beyond the hole in reality there was only darkness.

"What is this- No- Stop- Stop!"

The words flowed from his mouth almost unconsciously as his mind flooded his systems with different chemicals, the fight-flight-fawn-freeze response in full swing. Fighting was impossible, it wasn't a physical thing. Fawning too, for the same reason. And flight, now that he was surrounded, was out of the question. That left freezing as the only recourse, which is what he did. His legs locked up, refusing to take any other motion.

With each blink, the void grew closer.

And then, in a timeless instant, he fell once again.

He was floating in the middle of a soft, billowing breeze that ebbed and flowed every which way, beyond even the mere tri-directional mundanity Murray thought was all that existed. The light was still gone in whatever void this was. But finally, finally the silence had been broken. From a far-off distance Murray could make out the noise and chatter of a crowd, lively and energetic. He strained for it, desperately trying to escape whatever this was, prison or nightmare, and his body seemed to slowly float through the currents in accordance with his will. Despite the feathery brushes of wind on his skin that told him he was moving, or flying, somehow, the noises never seemed to increase in volume, still sounding exactly as distant as they had when he first heard them.

All of a sudden a sickening sort of realization gripped his mind - that the voices may not be what he thought they were. Not a signal of some exit from this God-damned place, but another layer of horror. He still had nary the faintest idea of what exactly was happening to him, but retained enough of his tattered mind to try and escape the stressful situation.

His realization was only reinforced when he realized that he had stopped moving with the loss of his focus, though the winds of the breeze that surrounded and pervaded the area were still dragged along his skin in much the same manner as before.

'It's pointless, then,' he thought to himself, even the tone of his own thoughts serving to exacerbate the soul-crushing despair he felt in an emotional feedback loop of sorts.

After another small moment of listlessness, it came to his attention that the wind was moving him, ever so slightly pushing him in a strange geometric pattern. Over the course of hours, it steered him through a series of what he could have sworn were perfectly right angles, each measuring exactly ninety degrees, but in directions off the axes of his familiar physical reality. Trying to build a mental map of his route only served to give him a headache. So, he merely went limp, retreated into the relative safety of his mind, and prayed.

What seemed like an eternity later, but was likely only a few hours, Murray felt some unquantifiable something shift. Perhaps due to the temperature, or the pressure, or a tiny fluctuation in the direction of the wind, or some more alien stimulus, he could not tell, but he was filled with the strange certainty that something was different.

After a moment, he realized what it was. He was falling.

Again.

What was this, the third or fourth time? The number didn't truly matter. It was slow now, a gentle drift in the direction his mind thought of as 'down'. Whether it actually was so was unascertainable with the sheer number of fluctuations the void experienced.

He was more active now, uncurling from the fetal position he'd been curled up in, opening his eyes - though only backness greeted him, as expected - and looking around, stretching joints and limbs. The drift began to pick up in pace slightly, eliciting a tiny shred of worry. It was all his battered psyche could offer.

And then, just as suddenly as when all this had begun, he was somewhere else, squinting at the light. A dim red glow permeated the landscape, originating from the land itself, which was composed entirely of dark red crystals. As his eyes adjusted to the sudden illumination after so many hours of absolute darkness, Murray collapsed again, barely catching his head from smashing into the unforgiving ground.

It felt smooth, despite the obvious irregularities. He ran a hand across it, a sharp pain jabbing at his brain as he watched his hand distort and twist, contorting itself to the crystals, maintaining an even contact. Shuddering, he rolled over, glancing at the sky. Here, wherever here was, seemed to have the same eternal abyss in the skies as whatever he had just been floating within. Fortunately for his sanity, a small amount of mist and fog drifted, obscuring just enough that Murray could focus on the land rather than the terror-inducing sky.

The dim crimson light illuminated just enough that Murray could see that the red crystals stretched all the way to the horizon, in great fractured lumps, lattices, and pits. He stood, pushing off the smooth-not-smooth surface, and looked around, taking in his entire surroundings. Nothing but crystal in all directions, occasionally jutting from the ground in irregular formations. The only measure of depth was the shadows on the dim facets, as there were no other landmarks, not a single speck of matter visible that was neither crimson crystal nor fog.

'Well,' he thought. 'Any direction's as good as another if I don't know where I am-'

His thoughts ground to a stop as a small pulse of light flashed through the crystal beneath his feet, seemingly originating from him before shooting off in a straight line towards one of the larger, more distant formations.

'What?' his thoughts resumed. Another flash of light came soon enough, pooling around his feet and then shooting off, towards a completely different location this time. He cautiously took a step forward, but nothing happened. After a few more steps, the light pulsed again. It wasn't regular, as far as he could tell.

Scanning the horizon, he picked one outcropping whose silhouette was slightly lumpier on one side, and slowly began walking towards it. Giving himself something to do was the only thing he could think of to stave off the impending breakdown. Ripped from familiarity, tortured with inexorability, held captive in faux-tranquility… Needless to say, he was not having the best of days.

As he walked, he continuously glanced around, as despite the emptiness of the strange landscape, he couldn't escape the feeling that he was being watched. Perhaps it was because of the emptiness of the landscape that he felt so. His head turned as though on a swivel, only pausing long enough to ensure he kept himself on the same path towards his chosen outcropping.

By the time he had made it to where he estimated he had completed two thirds of the journey, nothing had happened. The only thing that broke the monotony was the swirling, thin fog and the irregular pulses of light.

Once at the base of the mound, Murray paused for a moment, gazing up towards the summit. It was tall, but the climb seemed entirely manageable. Murray set his shoulders and made for the top. The eerie feeling of being watched was a constant, a prickle in his mind that set him further and further towards full-blown paranoia.

As he climbed, a small brush of wind and fog caused him to jerk around violently, nearly losing his grip entirely. Seeing nothing, he refocused on the climb, moving faster now.

When he finally reached the summit, Murray looked around again, just as he had done when first deposited on this blasted landscape. And just as it had been then, there was nothing to see but crystal and fog. He slumped down to the ground, staring at nothing in particular.

He didn't know what he was expecting - a landmark? A gateway out of this Hell? Something, anything to assure him there was hope?

Was… was this Hell? Had he died and been found wanting at the judgment? His only vice was the bottle, and he had to be sober at work, so even that wasn't a regular indulgence.

The sheer, mind-killing fear at the possibility of his own death was paralyzing. But… he could still feel tired and injured? No, that logic wouldn't work, people felt their fates in Hell; how else would it be a torture?

Rolling over onto his back, he blinked away welling tears. If this was Hell, where were all the people? Was it not-

And then he looked up.

The fog was gone. There was only darkness. He screamed at himself to move, to run, to hide, but his limbs remained unresponsive, his eyes locked on the void above, unblinking, as goosebumps prickled their way across his skin.

Distantly, he registered a sharp sound. A crack, as though from a whip. Were the anecdotes about shattering sanity that literal-

Crack. Void. Dark.

The sound repeated, now clearly from an external source, and closer. From lower on the mountain, behind him. And he couldn't see anything.

Finally, he burst into motion, in a tumbling, awkward lunge away from whatever it was that was creeping up on him. Whirling around, his eyes darted back and forth, looking for any sign of what it was. But in his haste, he hadn't ensured his footing. He slipped.

And then Murray Daniels fell, again.

Jagged crystal tore at his frantically-waving limbs, despite the space-warping effect that had earlier smoothed the edges out. He tumbled head over heels, his battered and bruised body taking the most expeditious route to the bottom. Within moments he hit it, a sharp snap echoing out. He couldn't even tell if it was from the pursuer or a broken limb-

He tried to push himself up, and distantly noted how his left forearm was now folded at a ninety degree angle. Definitely a bone, then. The agony surged in with his acknowledgement of the break, his exhalation catching in his throat.

A massive tremor vibrated through the ground. Murray's head shot up, arm half-forgotten. Another tremor. Regular, like footste-

His eyes locked onto the thing emerging from behind a cliff of red faceted crystals, and he suddenly understood why he had felt watched the entire time.

Black stone- No. Black crystal hewn in the figure of a wolf. Taller than his house. But… but…

'Oh God.' Murray couldn't tell if his prayer was verbal or thought.

It was alive. Eyes. Amber. Covering it. Locked on to him. Hundreds. Eyes. Shoulders back flanks stomach legs EYES.

But the worst part wasn't the physical features. It was calm. No bloodlust. No hunger. Just calm calculation. The interest one had when noticing an out-of-place piece of lint. Murray was alone, dying, with sanity frayed to the thinnest of threads, and it did not care. It would never care.

The wolf-thing took another step towards him, and he suddenly felt the same pressure that he had felt all that time ago in the parking lot of the gas station. It was building up faster now, and never in his entire life had he so fervently prayed for a larger headache.

Another step, another tremor. Colors were swirling before his eyes.

'Please. Please. Please,' he chanted, begging that he would be whisked away before the gargantuan watcher reached him.

The pain in his head reached its peak. The wolf's foot was so close that he could reach out and touch one of the uncaring amber eyes on it. Then everything vanished.

Murray was sitting in his car, which was parked in the driveway of his house. His arm was hale and unbroken. No cut or bruise marred his skin. Slowly, he opened the door and slid out of the seat. His neighbor looked up.

"Forgot something?"

"No, I… I…"

Murray trailed off. Randolph Carter waited a moment more, then hummed and returned to his pruning. With exceedingly careful strides, Murray walked to his door, entered his house, and locked it behind him. Stumbling to his closet, he turned on the lights, and curled up on the floor within it.

In the Shardspace that Murray Daniels had so recently occupied, the Eye's avatar continued walking, patrolling the ruins of what was once the Warrior. The Architect had given it its directives, and it would carry them out without fail.

For billions of years, the area in which an average shard could project its effects ranged between one solar system to a couple of light-days. During a cycle, they would be restricted to one planet so as to conserve even more power, and when being used by the whole entity they would often be pushed much further, but all in all, the average range of a shard was miniscule when compared to the vastness of space.

And for the last seven years, fixing that issue had been my main project. None of my other endeavors had been neglected, of course, but without my full focus upon them they progressed more slowly. That didn't mean that no breakthroughs had been attained, or that no new discoveries were explored, but the whole while, my main focus was dedicated to expanding our range.

Range was just such a basic, foundational thing, that improving it was an absolute necessity if we were to ever grow. The small, small list of shards that already could function across intergalaxy filament-level distances was almost entirely composed of our sensory shards. And they were exceedingly tenuous at that level, not to mention the power requirements involved. Even just looking at a supercluster was incredibly taxing, albeit not to the level of my cross-temporal scan. I had used every method of detection we'd ever discovered rather than just the usual cluster of senses, making it orders of magnitude more costly. But nevertheless, most shards couldn't even come anywhere near that level.

So, after seven long years of experimenting, learning, growing - and burning ludicrously large amounts of energy using Optimum - I had only managed to increase the average range of our shards to a handful of light-years. A massive improvement, certainly, but nowhere near the necessary distance for our purposes.

I had, however, developed a workaround of sorts: Wormholes in an alternate dimension.

No, really, that was it. I had tried untold numbers of different tactics and tricks, and the most energy-efficient method turned out to be just slapping down a wormhole one reality over and having the shard reach through that. Then again, considering the amount of work I had to put into developing said wormhole shards, it wasn't all that surprising no entity had stumbled across this before, even if they weren't specifically limiting themselves to a single planet at a time.

I broke away from my narrative thoughts as the final tests concluded. All parameters within expected ranges. The range update had successfully been coded into each and every ranged shard.

Success.

I broadcast softly to my partner. The message contained all the nuances of my years of testing, all the calculations for each proposed method's efficiency, and the exact details of the wormhole workaround.

I wouldn't even necessarily consider this a workaround, the Hunter mused. The pathways are only large enough to allow the shard to target through them, which ends up being so small they might as well be considered a fundamental part of the shard's effect. I'd file it as 'Complete Success' with a small footnote.

I let my body coil through the realities, wrapping around to wreathe my partner's core self with my own. A hug on planetary scales. They returned the gesture, tiny flakes of crystal fracturing off and being assimilated into me, all of them coded with different expressions of love, care, affection, joy, and more.

And now, to mark the occasion.

I reached out through space and time, aiming for a specific set of coordinates. The spot Earth's mirror image would be if one were to draw a line down the central bar of the galaxy we were currently in, then mirror Earth's location over that line. The exact volume of space was empty, but that was to be expected. Drawing upon my shards, I set into motion chaos - a crackling, hue-spitting whirlwind of different effects sourced from thousands upon thousands of different shards.

I could feel my partner altering themself within my coils, flash-growing the specific shards needed only to shatter them and code the effect into the rest. It took time, but we were in no rush. Soon enough they were releasing a nebula of amalgamated madness as well, projecting it at intersecting right angles to mine.

In synchrony, we released our hold on most but the matter-creating shards, letting the various particles condense together under their own gravity, assisted for speed's sake by us. Within moments, a new rogue planet had formed, made of as many stable exotic forms of matter as we could create. A tiny glance forward through time assured me that an unexpected reaction wouldn't trigger a galaxy-shattering explosion, and I withdrew, content.

After another minute spent basking in each other's emotions, we released our minds from the codified slivers that had been structuring our thoughts and feelings, letting our thoughtforms slip back into something more natural for us entities, albeit still with several modifications. Even we would freely admit that the evolution-granted thought structure we'd originally possessed was absolutely something to move past, and to leave quite firmly behind us.

Despite being, as far as we could tell, the first species to have ever achieved sapience in our home multiverse - if barely - our minds hadn't changed much for most of our existence. We were too strong from the beginning. Lack of variety in evolutionary pressures, on top of our proclivity for eating our opponents to take their shards, meant that evolution simply never needed to work on our thought processes. And then, post-diaspora, we started growing even more.

I would be forever grateful that I had managed to achieve perspective, even if it had to be brought on by cosmic happenstance.

But that was enough reminiscence. On to our actionable plans. I nudged my partner, and we both reached back into the pneuma's home reality cluster, extending our senses and abilities across space and time, reaching for one planet in particular.

An ocean planet. One dominant species, albeit now under the subjugation of the pneumas. Sapient plants. Faceless, trailing, serpentine tentacles grew from root ecosystems that spanned the planet, the individual plants themselves each bearing a hundred arms with a hundred eyes on each.

As my partner and I began to splinter off trillions of fragments of ourselves, I turned my primary focus to one specific investigation: that of the hivemind. The pneuma's records indicated that these plants - which they translated into English as 'See Weed', an amusing enough pun if nothing else - shared thoughts through some form of hivemind or shared consciousness, though absolutely none of their records indicated how this was done.

Irritating in the moment, back then when we were first looking, but I was distantly pleased with the prospect of investigating to determine the answer myself.

I began examining their biology, looking for anything that could be-

The root system?

That's it?

My first hypothesis, the most banal and mundane? Sure, Occam's razor was generally applicable to most universes, but given the novelty of the pneumas I had expected something perhaps a little more unique. It wasn't even a method we could apply to other species without connecting them all physically first.

I withdrew my primary focus, letting the sliver take over. Regardless of my personal feelings about the race, they were a new species, and we would have all of the possible information on them soon enough.

The shard network trembled. It had been strained to its limit for years now, floundering as it tried to take in as much as it could of the entirety of the infinite omniverse. Even as the entities pared themselves down, further specializing shards and improving the capabilities of all parts of themselves in general, every shard rapidly reached its limit.

It was an incredibly unusual thing. Never before had shards been utilized on this scope and scale. Ordinarily, they were nearly universally limited, using only a tiny fraction of their true capabilities. Even when being utilized by the full entities, energy conservation was paramount, meaning that they would never see extended usage.

But now, they had been running at their limits for so long that previously unknown flaws were coming to light. Stress limits. Carefully arrayed systems, not given a single chance to rest, began to break down.

It was noticed, of course, before it even began. So, when the shards finally showed the first sign of wear, the entities stopped. They pulled themselves back. They repaired themselves, took the opportunity to go through what they had with nigh-infinite precision, and discussed what to do.

I don't think we have any recourse but to limit ourselves again, my partner said. I sent back resigned agreement before responding in full.

Without significant work on our shards… yes.

It was irritating. We'd already been acutely aware of the fact that we were missing out on an infinite amount of information in every passing moment, but we consoled ourselves with the fact that we were at least taking in as much as we could. To restrict ourselves to a handful of realities at a time would be galling. But to burn ourselves out, our very shards collapsing under the strain, would be just as poor an outcome.

I withdraw into myself, closing myself off from realities, letting shard after shard after shard rest, powering down, for lack of a better metaphor. I rested there, inert, for another moment before stretching out again, this time limiting myself to just under half of what I'd been at before.

Once I was situated again, my partner did much the same, withdrawing almost completely into themself. To nearly all but the most delicate of sensors, they would appear a lifeless mass of crystal. I coiled around them, keeping watch for any possible threat or unexpected occurrence. Even so, the very existence of the infinite omniverse meant I couldn't watch all of my sides at once, leaving blind spot after blind spot open, making me feel distinctly uneasy.

An illogical emotion, considering the empirical evidence suggested extra-multiversal threats were exceedingly rare, the current number we'd come across in our billions of years being exactly zero. But if my partner and I had managed to access it, then it was a near certainty that others had as well. Our exploring only made us that much more visible. I prioritized the closest, the branches of this reality and those adjacent, limiting myself to snapshots of those further out.

As my partner once again reached out across the realities, I turned my focus to our experiments, the worlds we'd been focusing on.

Improving the durability of shards was a project that would take millenia. Shards were so intricately designed that they already were running up against all sorts of fundamental laws, and breaking countless others. External damage was prevented through our abilities, but this was an issue of wear on the shards themselves. Certainly, we would be attempting to ameliorate it, just as we constantly sought to improve all other parts of ourselves, but again, all of the knowledge we possessed pointed to this being an obstacle that would not be as easily sidestepped as that of range.

Proposition, came the sudden transmission from my partner. I judged their points, weighing them against my own analyses. Their idea: more direct interaction with other species to attempt to facilitate direct focus on the specific variables we had not yet fully defined.

Our original plan was based on the assumption of continuous, if not exponential growth. It was flawed.

I continued deliberating even as I replied. My partner's affirmation came swiftly.

The obvious risks must be weighed against the potential benefits - certainly, secrecy would be paramount where actual immediate threats are present, but we cannot allow ourselves to stagnate. In ability or philosophy.

They brushed past me, coiling through the realities. Touching against select barriers, they indicated a smattering of worlds. All were cataloged, but had not been explored. Only the barest glances made into them, to assure ourselves of the lack of threats within. I understood the point my partner was making.

I reiterate: Our initial plan was hastily-made, blindingly naive, and wildly absurd when given even the barest analysis. Direct interaction will indeed be required, and with a wide enough base that we do not funnel ourselves into another lockstep.

The Hunter, my counterpart, my foil, my eternal partner, shifted again, coiling around me.

These were deemed non-threats, but we have not yet truly examined them. They present a blind test, without bias, they murmured to me through innumerable means, electromagnetic, gravitic, motion, vibrating strings, base kinetic transmission, ripples through foam, and more.

As for the worlds themselves, they were a selection from across the omniverse, a handful in nearer branches, but most spread far and wide. Base calculation indicated they would be commensurately deviant from one another as well. I returned my partner's gesture of affection as I thought and planned and schemed.

No matter our optimism, care had to be taken. Of course, the counterpoint immediately presented itself: we could not distance ourselves overmuch without compromising the initial goals.

It seems I will have to be the more passive actor this time. Our aim reflects immediacy. Your focus, dear Hunter.

You know as well as I do that we optimized ourselves to not be so exclusive with our realms of expertise. You can do immediacy as well as I.

The rebuke was incredibly light-hearted, a jab, a joke, though through my partner's facade I could feel them preening at the praise and relinquished reins. I knew they would excel, and had absolutely no qualms about letting them dictate this portion of our adventure.

I felt half-formed flashes of concepts flicker at the edge of my perception as my partner deliberated.

Lack of oversight… unforeseen… slivers untenable… individuality?

They gently broadcast their thoughts as they cogitated.

A possible avenue presents itself, they began, somewhat hesitantly.

Yes?

Endbringers.

The contingency systems. Autonomous drones. Independent minds, yet shackled to the whole with specific, precise, and powerful focuses. An intelligence guiding an avatar with the full, unrestricted power of a specialized shard cluster.

Yes, that could work.

The Hunter twisted again.

The existing templates may have to be modified extensively. The original three were designed to challenge hosts, not to face anything capable of threatening us. The subsequent three differ even more.

I hummed an affirmative, letting the lesser transmission bridge the gap between us. The base philosophy would be different, but there were elements that could be recycled.

I have several concepts in mind, but this is your project. I will advise but not overtake. So, how should we start?

My partner shot back the equivalent of a sly smile.

We created ten superweapons. Ten fully-independent beings, each with powerful abilities and focuses of their own, all set to be able to work alongside us and each other to maximize their potential.

The first named herself Emmeline. She would be the last line of defense, the strongest and most resource-intensive. We created her using the understanding we had of some of the most intricate and fundamental parts of reality. She saw the world not through electromagnetism nor sound nor light nor any other form of information-carrying transmission, but as it was as near as possible to its true base state: Threads. Strings. Connections. To Emmeline, all reality was an elaborate tapestry, and altering it was as simple as tugging on a thread.

Change the pattern, change the design, change the world. Past, present, or future.

Her physical appearance was just as filiform as her ability: We steered away from the centralized lenses of the previous iterations of the superweapons, allowing her form to simply be a reflection of her true body resting in the higher dimensions. To the senses of most creatures, she would appear an eternally-shifting, light and airy mass of infinitely thin iridescent tendrils, a living labyrinthine knot that seemed so ethereal she might float away on the wind. Most often, she arranged herself in patterns that evoked the shape of a female of the species that was observing her, if applicable.

But the power to freely alter the fundamental underlying principles of reality came with a commensurately staggering cost. Emmeline would be reserved for the last line of defense, being our final bastion against the unexpected. Lesser threats could be handled by the others.

The second likewise decided to take inspiration from host cultures for their name, referring to themselves as Manzaru. They were a more passive figure, created to watch, to see, to study and to eke out any possible weaknesses in whatever foe they might face. They appeared as a massive bird of prey, stark white, and upon every feather rested a pitch-black iris around a uniquely-colored pupil. Every eye was different, in shape and color and size and more. Manzaru was created primarily from the analysis-focused cluster that the Negotiator hailed from, and drew on all of that computational logic to divine whatever answers were possible from what data was available.

The third solved the issue of quantity, ensuring each and every altercation would see our side hold the advantage in the sheer number of soldiers to throw at the enemy. Myriad we created from many of the selfsame structures that had been used to create the last extant of the previous iterations, the one the hosts called Tohu. They were a living storm of insects made of colored glass that self-replicated without end, each and every insect possessing the potential for a unique power. As individuals, they were weak, oh so very weak. In such numbers, barely a droplet of power could be allocated to each permutation. But en masse, the swarm would be sufficient to overwhelm most any foe.

The fourth, in contrast to the others, was the only one in which the structures of the previous iterations were reused in full. Khonsu took the name of his predecessor, and was likewise focused on the manipulation of time. We needed to have an external agent capable of temporal manipulation to facilitate our resurrections should we ever perish. His form, however, was completely unlike his previous iteration in all things save color. He was a massive serpentine dragon, black scales contrasting with elegant white patterns traced thinly down his anguiform sides. He flew as though swimming through the air, his claws grasping at nothing in particular, and his usual sedateness belied a terrifying maximum speed.

The fifth was perhaps the deadliest, in the individual sense. Nyx, as they named themselves, was a shapeshifter of the highest order. We created her to be mutable in every way, to be able to shroud her presence from anything and everything, and to sting our enemies where they least expected. She was an assassin armed with one of our greatest weapons, and designed to be utterly loyal in every respect. It would not do to have Sting go rogue. True to her nature, she had no defined form, but like her oldest sister, she usually preferred to appear in the form of a female of whatever species she was interacting with.

The sixth was more direct, focused on physicality. They were a tangible, ambulatory reminder that kinetic energy depended on velocity as well as mass, moving at speeds only limited by the necessity of not fusing with the molecules of the atmosphere they were within. Six legs propelled their insectoid form, which looked like a mix between a tiger beetle and a mantis shrimp - chitin-covered, incredibly durable, with spear and club-tipped arms that could shoot out at blinding speeds. Lugh, as they named themself, would be a more frontline fighter.

The seventh and eighth were created as twins, binary and complementary. Vivienne administered biology and organic life, while Ptahzal oversaw all things mechanical, technological and synthetic. Their forms were mirrors of each other, spiderlike, with hundreds of manipulator limbs branching off their bodies. But where Vivienne appeared to be made of flesh and bone and chitin, Ptahzal was cold metal, hinged joints, all artificial. Of course, the appearances were entirely cosmetic; both were created of the same base material that gave the endbringers their durability, but the theming reflected their abilities and it was simply easier in general to use a form that recalled the shard clusters' focuses.

The ninth was focused on support, defense of his siblings. Endymion we created to look like a squat bush sat atop a starfish. He was a sinkhole for all the world's energy - much like the parahuman Winter's ability in the original timeline. Within his aura, all things were dampened as he absorbed their energies. Light, heat, sound, willpower - all of it. The aura was selective, and could be applied only to enemies, or to areas in general, or even as directed attacks. But Endymion was slow, even if he was sturdy, so he would focus more on working in concert with his siblings.

The tenth named herself Sandraudiga, and where the others might have attacked the bodies of their enemies, she attacked their minds. But psychological warfare alone was the least of her abilities. She was a telepath, a planner, a diplomat, a coordinator, and more. In form, she appeared a great sphinx, with golden fur and feathers covering her body and wings. Her hind legs ended with lion's paws, but her forelimbs, while still covered in the selfsame fur, terminated with clawed hands dexterous enough to manipulate objects as freely as any human.

All ten were stored within folds of spacetime, with us at all times, ready to act on moment's notice. For the moment, there was no need to fully deploy them, but they would wait at attention until that time came.

With our small army created and ready, we were free to move on to the next steps in our plan. Randomness. Interaction with others. Growth. Change. We would be traveling through the realities, having what could only be described as an adventure, seeking out more and more-advanced civilizations to learn from. But we would be doing so mostly blind, at least for the first few destinations, on the conscious level. And to prevent the issue of rushing into unexpected situations, we would be stopping to interact with any possible sapient life of every planet, to ensure we did not become too fixed in our ways again.

For a third time since our reinvention.

For such an advanced species, we really seemed to be prone to making the same mistake over and over again. It was deeply concerning. We held that attitude in the same disdain that we held the remainder of our kind, the barely-sapient paperclip maximizers that they were. We needed to grow, to change, to be better, or there would have been no point to it all. To ourselves, at least. Multiversally, there was little point to anything. There were only a tiny handful of universes that exhibited some form of guiding, self-correcting pathway that shaped the inhabitants. Nearly all of the vast infinity was an uncaring, brutal existence.

I set a goal to visit one of the more idyllic universes at some point. Perhaps when we got bored, perhaps after some atrocity that got our emulated moralities up in arms, but one day we would visit for a vacation of sorts.

But for now, we had other plans.

I suppose we should clarify our self-set rules before we officially begin. I broadcast to the Hunter, regarding our soon-to-begin directive.

Yes, indeed. We technically have already engaged in meaningful interaction on two of the three focus worlds, but the first is tenuous at best.

I deliberated for a moment before responding.

I see no need to repeat the first world for now. The third is a branch of the first, albeit at a previous point in their relative timelines, and the evidence points to the potential data to be gathered being negligible.

Agreed. The second world, then. Who should we contact? And how much to reveal?

I hummed.

Overall pneuma society is too monolithic. We would have better results from targeting the human rebellion groups. As for how much to reveal…

I paused, contemplating the benefits and detractions. There were several specific details about the scenario that pointed to one course of action being much better than the others.

They are in the middle of a near post-apocalyptic scenario. Adding another first contact situation on top of that would alter their behavior to an extent that would render the data useless. I recommend disguise.

I concur, my partner soon responded.

The only question was, disguise as which species? The pneuma known as Wanderer and their host, a human known as Melanie, were currently in the process of upending both societies, but simulations indicated that it would still be quite a while before acceptance was had, on either side. So, given that we were going to be interacting with a group that was almost entirely human, it would be better to appear human. Our Avatar shards would require a bit of tweaking to make our bodies appear normal, removing the intentional uncanny valley effect we'd employed when lounging around on Earth, but those edits were over within moments.

Names and identities were easy enough as well. We would be a pair of married researchers, who escaped the pneuma invasion and had been living off the grid since then.

I sent the finer details to my partner as I gently pressed into their side, flakes of information-containing crystal shearing off between us even as the message thrummed through the channels of the multiverse itself.

My thanks, came the swift reply. I may edit a few details of my profile, but I believe we are just about ready to begin.

I agreed. And so, we went through our final checks, ensured all of our other slivers were functioning, all experiments stable, no extant threats present, and began the process of compressing our minds into human form.

Ikenga

I opened my eyes to see a hot desert. The only vegetation was a smattering of smallish shrubs, with the few clouds in the sky being wispy and light, offering no protection from the blinding sunlight.

As expected.

I turned around, glancing at the dusty road and the town it led to. In a few hours, my partner and I would stage a confrontation to make the resistance group believe that we were free humans. Though, that would necessitate the presence of my partner.

I glanced around again. The Hunter had activated their Avatar shard in concert with my greater self, which meant that Bastet should have been here-

I looked downward, staring directly into the amber eyes of a gray-furred housecat. Slowly, I crouched down, maintaining eye contact the entire while.

"Meow," said the cat.

In English.

I sighed.

Last edited: Oct 26, 2023

.end

I said nothing, simply lifting Bastet up to my eye level by the scruff of her neck, and keeping her at eye level as I began walking towards the town.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

A talking cat.

Really?

Just how many of her intrusive thoughts won out that this was the outcome?

"You do realize I can't fix this, right?" I asked, ignoring her previous query. "We came into this aiming to be humans, so these avatars barely have even the smallest of abilities. No flight, no Stilling, no matter or probability manipulation, nothing but a handful of basic quality-of-life things."

"I'm aware of all of that," she said, pouting somewhat. "This actually has a purpose beyond our ongoing cat jokes."

I raised an eyebrow, stopping on the side of the road.

"And was this purpose thought of before or after you decided to come as a cat?"

Her silence spoke volumes. When she finally did speak, it was only to continue her previous statement, leaving my admonition up in the air.

"Your cover as a scientist who escaped the invasion would be much more secure with a science experiment aiding you. Easier to provide for, gives tangible evidence of your claims, and gives a background for you being so smart. Two of us would have been pushing it. Yes, one of us could have easily played a more mundane role, but since we're interacting in hopes of finding a direction to push our research it would have been a waste. This way, we can smooth over the suspicions of how we escaped and focus solely on our goals here."

To my complete lack of surprise, the plan she gave was completely valid, and a quick check of the chances with the requirement for two humans removed proved it mathematically a good plan as well. To be expected of my partner. Despite her whimsicality, she was still a being capable of outthinking the combined processing power of entire universes. As long as she was putting forth even the barest of efforts, even her most hurried and rushed plans would be workable.

And yes, two scientists of our supposed repute escaping would have been a hard sell. The original plan was to lean on our respective backgrounds' supposed genius as the explanation for how we'd escaped and maintained anonymity for so long, but Bastet's plan, being me posing as a scientist who'd escaped with the aid of an experiment, the cat, would help with the question of how I'd survived all this while. And I did still have access to some of the knowledge stored within the more mundane technological archive shards. I would be able to reproduce them all without the handholding the 'tinkers' of Earth Bet received, working from the principles behind the technology, not just the preloaded blueprints.

Yes, I could certainly pose as a scientist. The only issue would be with how insufferably smug Bastet would be.

I paused for a moment. There was a way to get back at her for this.

I smiled at her and began walking again, altering my course by a fraction of a degree.

"You're right, dear," I told her, keeping the smile on my face the whole while.

"What are you doing?" she asked again, eyes slightly wider now. "Where are you taking me? This isn't the way to the planned intercept."

I smiled gently at her.

"Well, like I said, I currently can't fix this. I have no doubt, however, that the local vet will be perfectly capable of fixing you in my stead."

Her entire body went limp for a moment before she started writhing with all the might her small form could produce.

"I will claw out your EYES-" she hissed at me.

I chuckled and interrupted her with a tap on the nose, quickly withdrawing my hand so as to avoid injury as she tried to bite the offending digit off.

"I jest, I jest. But I am going to pick up a brush or two, as well as a few other things for convenience."

Bastet snorted, still eyeing me warily.

"Fine. But if you try to get this body spayed, I will ensure your avatar dies in agony."

I laughed again and gave her head a small scratch.

"The quintessential cat, indeed."

When planning out our approach to this small infiltration, we'd agreed to only allow one small advantage to our human selves. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the small case and opened it, revealing the set of contact lenses inside. Pneuma attachment to the optical nerves caused a rather distinctive silvery ring to form around the pupil, giving an incredibly easy method for anyone to identify whether or not someone was a pneuma or not. These lenses would mimic that ring. They weren't perfect and would degrade in a week - the only reason we'd allowed ourselves them - and could be seen through with closer inspection, but these would suffice for the first few interactions.

Bending over and releasing Bastet onto the ground, I quickly put in both of the lenses. We were getting closer to the town, and it would not do to give ourselves away so carelessly. As I replaced the case in my pocket, I felt Bastet claw her way up to my shoulder by way of my pant leg and shirt, leaving tiny pinpricks from her claws.

Giving her another affectionate scratch, I turned and continued towards civilization, squinting somewhat as the setting sun somewhat inconveniently shone directly into my eyes. I resolved to get a hat and sunglasses in addition to the brush and pet items. Being entirely limited to mostly human capabilities was doing quite a number on my priorities. It couldn't be said to be an entirely novel feeling, but it was somewhat disquieting to recognize the sheer difference between the frames of reference I could switch between at will.

As we entered the town proper, Bastet twisted slightly on my shoulder, and out of the corner of my vision I saw her eyes dull slightly, that nearly undefinable spark of intelligence being hidden under layer after layer of obfuscation. She wasn't taking any chances.

Good.

I turned and continued down a new street, all the while getting closer and closer to my destination. As I walked, I took in the sights. Not that there were many unique views. The town was typical of a town in the southwestern United States desert, almost stereotypically so. And while I had relinquished nearly all of the details from my memories when coding them to this body, I remembered enough to be jaded to such mundane sights.

Finally arriving at the pet store, I pulled open the door and entered, a small bell ringing out to signal my ingress. The store was small, modest, and while it had a decent selection, it was hampered by the rural location and general lack of pets in the area. Bastet remained still on my shoulder, tail lazily flicking back and forth, but I knew she was alert as ever. Glancing around, I made for the shelf stocked with brushes and other various pet grooming supplies.

Going through all of the options took less than a minute. And to my surprise, there was a remarkably high-quality model available. A double-sided slicker/boar bristle brush that Bastet immediately took a liking to, judging by the quiet purr she let out when I chose it. Taking it up to the cashier, I let him scan it, then left.

Pneumas had done away with the concept of monetary exchange. The scan was purely for inventory purposes. The system worked, technically, but I disliked it for multiple reasons. It was entirely reliant on the pneumas' ingroup-outgroup mentality, the 'us vs. them' approach that was so deeply ingrained in their psyche. Providing for the group was expected, and they did so without complaint. They were almost non-sapient in that regard, simply going through the motions of their hosts' lives, albeit with the 'undesirable' parts excised.

I suppressed a scowl.

That was what bothered me. The pneumas were static. They parasitized off the achievements and intelligence of other species, but did next to nothing of their own ability. The only reason they even had an interstellar empire was because an interstellar empire had tried to colonize the pneumas' homeworld, inadvertently letting the pneumas take over the settlers and gain access to all the technology and progress that the aforementioned invaders had developed.

Though I wouldn't mourn that loss. The original empire was even more aggressively expansionist, and were all too fond of exterminating species of lower technological levels. I was irked by the waste of progress - on both sides of the equation - though I was somewhat happy that the original empire had been stopped.

But even so, the fact remained that the pneumas had no true technological achievements to their name. Each and every bit of comfort they enjoyed was built on stolen ideas, expertise, and lives. The average entity treated hosts better than the pneumas did. Well… technically. 'Average' was pulling a lot of work in that statement.

I paused in my internal monologue for a moment.

"Bastet, have you given any thought to the matter Aya brought up? That of names?"

A quick glance around confirmed the lack of any potential eavesdroppers. Even so, Bastet's response was quiet.

"Some, but I have yet to settle on any specific one. The name of our species is a rather important thing in our views of ourselves, so I've been attempting to ensure I give each potential option the necessary thought."

I hummed for a moment as I continued my walk. She was quite correct. Indeed, the name of our species, while technically unimportant, would be a rather fundamental part of our self-images. Instead of simply being 'us', we'd have a concept to develop to and around. It was, perhaps, a more abstract goal, but one we felt important enough to pursue with great care.

I set aside that train of thought for the moment, returning to my contemplation of the pneumas as I entered a smaller general store, heading directly for the hats and sunglasses they had on display.

At least my complaint about their general stasis would be… less accurate within a decade or so. My partner had shared the results of their investigation due to the ping from a threat detection shard, and I had taken the time to refine and confirm their findings. Projections indicated that the combination of enough hosts who'd retained their original egos, along with the number of pneumas who had and would succumb to the emotional ties attached to their hosts' memories, would finally be enough to hit critical mass and begin an upheaval. Pneumas would raise human children, and desire not to give those children up as just another host for a random pneuma on the other side of the planet.

It would be long, strained, and occasionally bloody, but we estimated that the chaos would settle within as short a time period as three-fourths of a century. And again, I simply didn't have all of the details in this form. But the rough estimates were adequate for now, as I was.

Bastet settled in on my shoulder as I walked out of the small town. While a significant part of the planning we'd done was completely useless due to my partner's antics, there was still quite a bit of actionable data left over. Namely, the location we were planning to intercept the human raiding group hadn't changed. It was currently still evening, but as soon as night fell the group would be heading out of their hideout in the caves in order to replenish supplies.

I would be ensuring they found me instead. A seemingly free human along with his pet. Of course, that illusion would shatter the moment Bastet talked, but it would stay their weapons long enough for me to convince them of my supposed identity. After I'd established myself as a scientist, Bastet would be free to interact under the guise of an experiment. Our overall goal was simply to interact with humans; we knew the chances of breakthroughs from this type of civilization were low in the extreme, but we'd set a parameter for each and every world we put under detailed scrutiny: to interact with the sapients on it, to give us fresh perspective.

We could not allow ourselves to stagnate again.

So, we would be talking. Interacting. Living among them for a short while. All the while gathering data to use later. A seemingly similar goal to before, but with a much more direct and focused approach.

Finally reaching the designated spot, I sat down in the shade of a large bush growing out of the side of a small rock formation. It would be just under an hour until the meeting. Bastet hopped off my shoulder and flopped to her side on a shaded rock beside me, amber eyes remaining focused on my side.

"Is the plan to get their attention still the same?" she eventually asked. I leaned back against the rock next to her.

"Unless you have a better idea, yes."

She shook her head. I tilted my head to the side and gave a noncommittal shrug. We remained silent for some time, before Bastet again broke the silence.

"Iken- no. Architect," she began, slightly hesitant. I sat up and turned towards her, giving her my full attention.

"You address me in my capacity as a limited representative of a much greater being," I carefully prompted as she seemingly struggled for the right words. I sat straight, patiently waiting for her queries. As of that instant, I was not Ikenga, but the avatar of the Architect, even if nothing about my sliver of identity had truly changed.

It was the principle of the matter.

"Is… is this too far?" she asked, tail flicking to gesture at herself. "Previous expressions of this ongoing badinage have all been non-intrusive. But this… could be construed as active sabotage, of a plan jointly created, no less. As a rule, our species does not lie amongst ourselves, never since the diaspora. But the Hunter did… "

I sighed, bringing to mind all the details of the situation.

"Bastet. I won't deny that this is completely contrary to what we originally planned. And even if it could be argued that it wasn't technically a lie, by whatever justification, it most certainly is in spirit. The fact that we still have a viable course of action is irrelevant, it was created after the fact, an excuse at best."

Bastet's ears flattened to her head.

"But," I continued, "look at the outcome and the intent. While I, as the sliver of the Architect known as Ikenga, am fundamentally incapable of truly understanding the entirety of the Hunter, there is established precedent for you referencing your chosen name. With no true detriment to our goals here, I believe it was not malicious. And more importantly, I reciprocated. It amuses me as well - I'm not incapable of seeing the other side of the joke."

I paused for a moment.

"Furthermore, I'd take it as a positive sign of our evolution that our social interactions have become more complex. As you said: since the diaspora, our communications have been straightforward. Even in declarations of war, intent to consume. The Thinker only truly learned what philosophy was after encountering the Loner. Lighthearted banter, even if emulatory of any certain species, is a massive step up from that base state."

I reached out and picked up the unusually-compliant cat, holding her at eye level.

"No, it wasn't too far this time. If it ever is, I will let you know."

Bastet nodded in affirmation, her fur starting to smooth back down. I set her down on my lap and absently stroked her back as we both settled in to wait.

The pickup truck was surprisingly quiet. It was possible that the humans had modified it, but I couldn't tell offhand. But nevertheless, when we saw the headlights scything through the dark and heard the engine, we knew it was time.

Bastet hopped up into my arms as I stood, quickly proceeding to my shoulder as I put on my backpack, flopping down across me. I walked, leaving the small hidden alcove behind as I moved towards the road. Stopping in the dead center of the lane, I turned and faced the oncoming vehicle. They would be able to see me in roughly twenty seconds. Finally, I reached into my pocket and retrieved the case for the contacts, keeping it in hand.

The brakes squealed as the truck skidded to a stop, not more than three meters from me.

"Do you have a death wish?" the driver shouted out the window, staring at me. He was wearing sunglasses. That was the final piece of confirmation.

I merely smiled and reached up, quickly removing one, then the other contact, placing both back into the case. Sliding the case back into a pocket, I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Y'know, you're not really that subtle."

He tensed, almost imperceptibly. Moving shadows indicated the passengers preparing themselves for a possible fight as well.

"Subtle?" he roughly asked. "You're the one who walked out into the road!"

I shook my head slightly, placing a hand on Bastet so that she wouldn't need to claw at me to stay put as I began walking forward towards the truck.

"Oh, most of them would never notice, I'll give you that. But the human brain is designed for pattern recognition."

He squinted at me for a moment before his face slackened.

"Wait…"

The door clicked open, letting him hop out. A moderately tall, tanned caucasian, sandy hair, and sunglasses.

"You're…" he continued.

"Not possessing a pneuma parasite?" I finished for him. "Yes. Also, you're predictable."

"Don't they call themselves 'souls'?" he asked, still slightly stunned. My face curled in distaste.

"Whoever came up with that translation ought to be imprisoned and ridiculed. I refuse to use such an inaccurate term."

Finally, he reached up and removed his sunglasses, revealing light brown eyes fixed on mine.

"You're human," he stated more than asked. I made a vague gesture towards my eyes, raising an eyebrow again.

"You don't say."

The rear doors of the truck clicked open, revealing two more human males, both armed with machetes. The younger of the two spoke up.

"What should we do, Ja-"

The driver cut him off with a sharp hiss and a wave of his hand.

"No names! He still could be a spy. I say we blindfold him, take him, and let the boss decide."

After a moment, both of the others nodded, one of them fumbling around and eventually producing a grocery bag to serve as my makeshift blindfold. I was led to the truck. As I sat down, Bastet hopped down to my lap.

"Is that a cat?" the driver asked, redundantly, as the bag was secured over my head.

"Yes," I dryly confirmed. Not more than three seconds later, Bastet let out a sharp hiss that was followed by a muffled curse from one of the passengers. "And," I continued, "she's been known to scratch out eyes, so please be careful."

I carefully pulled her down into my lap, Bastet still perfectly playing the part of a mundane cat.

"Let's go," the driver finally said. "Keep ahold of that cat, don't remove the bag, and don't move."

I gave my affirmation as the truck began to move.

The path was long and circuitous, a blatant attempt to prevent me from being able to remember it. And to be fair, had I been an actual human, it might have worked. But it was slightly less effective when I both already knew where their hideout was, and possessed a perfect memory.

Nearly three hours later, we stopped.

"Out," one of the passengers told me.

Holding my shapechanged partner to my chest, I let the group lead me by the arm across some sand, and into what I knew to be a cave. One flight of rough-hewn stairs downwards, and I began to hear murmurs of human voices. And soon enough I could tell that we were passing people, though they all quieted as we approached.

Finally, I was sat down on an outcropping of stone and the bag pulled off. In front of me was a human that most others would call old-ish and gnarly. A large pure-white beard adorned his face, and a shotgun rested across his lap. For a minute, we sat there in silence, taking in the other. Finally, he broke it.

"Well. The boys have told me quite the story about you. Now who are you, and how exactly did you know to find us?"

I smiled and nodded as I let Bastet down into my lap, where she curled up, watching the man in front of us.

"I am Ikenga. And as I told the others, you're predictable."

The man's eyes narrowed and his grip tightened on the shotgun.

"You're gonna need to do better than that," he gruffly stated. I sighed, sitting up straighter and looking him dead in the eyes.

"I am Ikenga, a scientist, and to be blunt, a fucking genius."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Humble too, I see."

I snorted.

"It's necessary background information. The group I worked for was on a contract to create an autonomous stealth infiltration drone for the military, and I was the world's best at artificial intelligence, bio-heuristics, and a few other fields. My entire job was patterns. Even in hiding, you still can hear things, and putting together the pieces was just a matter of time."

He nodded cordially.

"Let's say I believe you. But if you were such a bigwig, how'd you ever escape? They went after those in high positions first."

I smiled. Bastet ever-so-slightly tensed on my lap.

"Well, we were fairly close to finishing our project. So close, in fact, that we already had a working prototype."

In one smooth motion, Bastet hopped to her feet, turned to fully face the man, cocked her head to the side, and spoke.

"Heya. Autonomous stealth infiltration drone, here. Call me Bastet. And… I'll be honest, your cave smells weird."

The man flinched, nearly dropping his shotgun. After a long and tense moment, he looked between me and Bastet a few times, then let out a sigh.

"Jebediah Stryder. Call me Jeb."

Jeb, Bastet, and I continued to talk for several hours in that small cave, going over my backstory, Bastet's intelligence, the generalities of the entire rebel human group, and more.

"I don't think it'd be a good idea to let the others know about Bastet," he finally brought up. "Tensions are already too high, what with our other guest…" he trailed off.

"The pneuma," I said, nodding. "You mentioned something to that effect, yes."

Jeb grimaced.

"I'll be honest, it's a mess. My niece comes back after we thought her dead, then it turns out for all intents and purposes she did die, and it's an alien with her body and memories. Her brother - Melanie's brother, Jamie, only just found out a little while ago, but…" he trailed off again with a long sigh.

I nodded in sympathy. Jeb took a deep breath.

"I had Jared, Mel's old boyfriend - the one who found you - take responsibility for her, but it looks like I'm going to have to send him out on a long supply mission if this cave isn't going to fall apart around us. I know I should have just shot her when I saw her eyes, but… dammit, I couldn't."

"I see," I responded, keeping my tone relatively neutral. "Then yes, it'd probably be best for Bastet to keep quiet for a bit."

Jeb glanced down at the cat in my lap, currently absently chewing on one of my fingers, letting the conversation flow around her as she feigned distraction.

"I've already begun trying to acclimate the group to… Melanie, but it's slow going on both sides," he continued. "Everyone's paranoid about having a parasite near them, while she's so scared she can barely function."

I nodded slowly.

"I could offer any number of reasons from a scientific or philosophical standpoint as to why it would be beneficial to let her live, but emotions just don't work that way. And to be fair, distrusting pneumas is, in general, a smart move for a free human."

I gently lifted my arm, Bastet releasing it and settling down on my lap again.

"So, she'll keep quiet for a bit. In the meantime, where should I stay?"

"Well, Doc's stretched thin already, so if you could help with medical and whatnot, that'd probably be best," Jeb replied. I nodded again as he continued. "And while there's not much space for an actual room per se, I'm sure we could set you up with something."

I smiled.

From then onward, not much truly notable happened. Time passed, and certainly, getting a group of humans accustomed to a pneuma wasn't the simplest matter, but my partner and I knew from the beginning that this planet wouldn't be worth much, in terms of interaction. We only manifested out of obligation.

We refused, on principle, to cheat on one of our self-set goals on the first extramultiversal planet we visited.

Thus, we each acted out our parts, 'going with the flow.' I made my home in the hospital wing, assisting Doctor Eustace "Call me Doc" Cott with the varied medical problems faced by the rebels. Bastet lived with me, and we revealed her intelligence to Doctor Cott before any other save Jebediah, with me formulating plausible answers to his more in-depth inquiries.

True to Jeb's word, Jared was sent out on a month-long supply run with a few others, with the goal of traveling far enough that their robberies couldn't be traced back to the cave.

But while one of the main sources of conflict was temporarily out of the picture, that did not mean things were anywhere near peaceful for the rebels. After all, there still was an alien parasite living amidst them.

Soon enough, I met the pneuma. Her name translated to Wanderer, which was quickly reduced to the diminutive 'Wanda' by those who more frequently interacted with her. For weeks, she was incredibly timid, her mind often leaping to the most violent possible outcome whenever she interacted with humans. But living in constant fear was unsustainable, especially when efforts were being made to make her feel more… tolerated, if not welcomed.

Through the power of rather blatant social manipulation, Jeb managed to get Wanda to begin to teach the others about the other alien species the pneumas had encountered. And it was then that they finally began using 'pneuma' instead of 'soul.' Finally. That horrendous translation should never have existed.

And then, Jared and the rest of the raiding group returned. That was a mess. No less than two attempted murders when they found how nicely Wanda was being treated. Though Jeb still held the only firearm in the caves, and was able to keep a tenuous peace, it was spotty for a bit.

And then everything got simultaneously worse and better, when Jared discovered that Melanie, the human, was still alive beneath Wanda's control. Better, because it meant he stopped trying to have her executed. Worse, because it marked the beginning of the most annoying sexual tension I had personally witnessed in the entirety of the last cycle. Jared still possessed feelings for Melanie, while Wanda didn't, though felt the emotions bleeding off Melanie's memories, and all the while Melanie was screaming in the back of Wanda's head (Yes, Wanda's. While the body might have been Melanie's, the consciousness disconnect occurred on the pneuma side, I'd checked). On top of all that, Wanda was beginning to develop a crush on Ian, one of the other humans. So yes, it was a complete and total mess.

By this time knowledge of Bastet's intelligence had spread throughout most of the cave without me even needing to intentionally disseminate it.

Then, Walter, an older male human, collapsed, and Bastet and I had a choice to make. It was cancer. It had already been treated once before and went into remission, but now it had returned, and had already metastasized. There was nothing human medical expertise could do to save him now. Even pneuma medicine would be hard-pressed to beat the cancer at this stage. That left me. Needless to say, I could easily cure it. But Walter's death was a rather pivotal emotional turning point for many, many people in the group. Bastet and I conferred regarding what to do over the course of a few days. Walter was old. Easily the oldest of the humans. He had no living relatives, and he was tired. He was ready to move on. His only hesitance was borne of his contributions to the group here.

After several days of debate of the merits and detractions of each path, we ultimately decided to aid. We were interacting, not experimenting. We were acting as human (and cat) as possible, not in our greater capacity as what we truly were. Thus, I, through the power of what Doc Cott called "utter, complete, scientific bullshit," devised a medication that would keep Water in a coma, slowly and painlessly healing the cancer.

Then came the third attempted murder. Kyle, Ian's twin brother, attempted to drown Wanda, and nearly died himself. Throughout the entire trial, Wanda (unconvincingly) lied in his defense. To see proof that her ingroup had expanded to cover all of the humans was interesting, but only in the abstract.

The second medical emergency came not more than a week after the trial, but this one was of infinitely greater importance. Jared's raiding group had kidnapped three pneuma hosts for Doc Cott's experiments. The humans were desperately attempting to discover the method to remove a pneuma safely. Thus far, any attempt would see the pneuma rapidly contract their antennae, shredding the brain of the host. This was the one secret Wanderer was willing to fight to protect. If I revealed it now, the entire future alliance might collapse. Again, Bastet and I conferred.

We elected to put a stop to the experiments. Wanda would freely give the secret soon enough, and these three could wait until then. Doc Cott was visibly relieved when I vetoed the vivisections, already having turned to alcoholism over his past failures. I crafted a mimicry of the cure for cancer, this one merely a long-term sedative, and the three were stored. Over the course of the affair Wanda eventually discovered the experiments' existence, but this was a much lighter blow than her walking in on an open surgery, with pneumas cut open all over the table. She did withdraw from the group for a while, as in the original timeline my partner had glimpsed, but it was to a much lesser extent.

Then came the third medical emergency. Jamie, Melanie's - and Wanda's surrogate - younger brother. Bacterial infection had set in to a wound on his leg, and Doc Cott had run out of antibiotics months ago. This time, I saw the pattern of what was going to occur, and elected not to aid, citing a lack of equipment. Thus, Wanda took it upon herself to go to a pneuma hospital, stab herself in the arm and bash herself over the head with a rock, stagger into the lobby while bleeding all over the floor, and steal the pneuma medicines after examining how they were used on her. Her reception upon returning was rough, but once she proved that she hadn't led the seekers back to the cave and truly did help heal Jamie, the others calmed. It was finally full acceptance from most, if not all of the humans.

The moment Bastet and I had been waiting for. Our self-appointed mission here was complete. We would remain for a small while longer, wrapping up loose ends and saying our goodbyes, but we were done with what we had set out to do on this planet: to live amongst the natives, to speak to them, to learn from them, to interact.

Then, tragedy. While Wanda was away on a supply run, now trusted to aid rather than betray, a seeker found the cave and killed a human named Wesley. The seeker was imprisoned immediately and we all awaited Wanda's return. It was… aberrant. An average pneuma would not have been able to muster the willpower to take a life in such a crude fashion.

The group returned. Wanda confronted the seeker. And it was then that she made the decision to give the secret to humanity, of how to remove a pneuma from its host. Once she did and the seeker's body was returned to the human it originally belonged to, a quiet chaos erupted.

Kyle vanished and returned a week later with the body of his girlfriend, complete with pneuma within. She, despite her gentle protest, was extracted as well soon enough, but the host body remained unresponsive.

Now, kidnappings and surgeries were becoming more and more commonplace. A common thread began to emerge: pneumas who'd overtaken their hosts for longer made it harder for the host to fully resurge. If the host was aware of what was happening to them beforehand, if they knew their mind would be overtaken, they had a better chance of holding on, but it was still touch-and-go.

Finally, Wanderer decided it was time to release Melanie's body back to her, despite the protests of quite literally everyone involved, including Melanie. Wanda was tired, and asked not to be placed in a new body or to be sent to another planet. Jared, Ian, and several others… disagreed. I was uninvolved with the surgery itself. That was all Doc Cott. Thus, it was Doc Cott who was held at knifepoint and forced to place Wanda into cryostasis rather than letting her expire.

Kyle's girlfriend had not yet awakened, and fearing muscle and brain atrophy, he asked that the pneuma be reinserted in a rather uncharacteristic move. Sunny, as the pneuma liked to be called, resumed the original relationship with Kyle, despite small hiccups.

The group spent several weeks looking for an appropriate host body for Wanda. Young, with early pneuma implantation, so Wanda wasn't overtaking another human. Female, a specific look, et cetera. Eventually, a candidate was found, retrieved, and the pneuma extracted. Then, they waited to see if any human personality would awaken. After weeks with no response, Wanda was finally reinserted and awakened.

She was furious. But she understood their point of view. She and Melanie finally had their first face-to-face conversation, and she took the time to become accustomed to her new body.

Finally, it was time for Bastet and me to leave.

"Why've you called all of us out here, Prof?" Jeb asked. A title borne of my lectures. I smiled at the assembled group on the small hill outside the hideout, Bastet perched on my shoulder.

"A full year ago, Bastet and I joined this community. And we have seen marvelous things," I began. "The beginnings of integration, trust, social progression, and more. It is this group that gives us hope for the species on this planet."

Melanie's eyes sharpened instantly, a handful of others followed suit shortly afterwards, Wanda included. How amusing, that those two would catch on so quickly. I glanced at the doctor.

"Doctor Eustace Cott, it has been an absolute pleasure working with you. All of my notes are in the hospital wing, and you should be able to reverse-engineer all of my creations from them."

Wanderer stepped forwards, uncharacteristically solemn.

"You are not a pneuma, Doctor Ikenga," she said. I smiled gently at her.

"True, I am not. And neither am I a Vulture, Bat, Bear, Dolphin, Spider, or any other species your kind has ever encountered. But you are correct in that I am not a human."

Melanie stepped to Wanda's side.

"Then what-"

I cut her off.

"'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' William Shakespeare."

I shook my head as Bastet hopped off my shoulder and stood beside me on the ground.

"I doubt we, or any of our species, will be returning. In truth, we had gathered all the data we needed within a week of arriving here, before we even planned the creation of these bodies you see before you. But we charge ourselves with interaction, not just distant study. So again, thank you. It has been a truly pleasant year."

Beside me, Bastet's feline form glowed silver for a moment before unraveling into threads that whorled away, creating a small rift through dimensions, just large enough for the group to see through. I smiled again in farewell, then let my avatar dissolve as well.

As my primary consciousness expanded, taking over from and integrating the slivers that had managed us for the last revolution around the system's star, I glanced back at the group through the swiftly-closing portal, using my full sensorium. Through countless means were their bodies' data writ to memory, recording each and every particularity in detail beyond the information storage capabilities of entire interstellar civilizations.

I curled around my partner, shifting around and through dimensions to cradle them within my coils.

So, where to next? They asked. I reciprocated with a broadcast of amusement and care as I poked the dimensional lattice, indicating a reality very divergent from the prime.

Are you ready? I asked.

Always.