Chapter Text
Everything is grey. The world has lost its colour and is now but a pale reflection of what once was. Well, mostly.
Above I see it. Colour, colours, hues… unimaginable, they streak above like a stream or a river, silent, but oh so loud. They call to me, these indescribable colours, they call for my soul, but their song is different from that of the Outcast, it is inviting but not overwhelming, alluring but not forcibly so, and so regretfully and with pain in my heart I ignore it. There is something else that calls me, something more important. I turn my gaze bellow, and I see myself, or rather my body, as it lays unmoving.
I move toward it, but like magnets of the same polarity the closer I get the more it tries to reject me. I try, again and again, always a bit closer, always a bit farther. I don’t stop. I know not what drives me, only that it must be important, only that I can’t stop, never stop, never stop, never…
There is a pause in the song, a lapse in the longing and as I turn to face it I see someone emerging from that stream. She looks young and wears all black with a scythe to her side. She is saying something to an object she holds. I don’t hear it, this place has no sound after all.
She comes closer and I can tell she is also pulling me closer, or at least trying to.
I turn back to my corpse and continue trying, this can’t be the end, I won’t let it, never the end.
I feel her presence drawing near, it has the same sound as the stream, one of peace, of calm, of a sweet dream.
I try harder, there must be something I’m lacking, some threshold I must be able to pass, I can’t let it end, I can’t let them down. I can’t be alone. This can never be my end, never be–
Something changes, not my attempts, they yield similar results, but suddenly there is colour in this grey world, besides the stream of course, a deep violet emanates from one end of the room, and just as sudden as it arrives so does my sight of the room. It’s the same I died in, except empty. Well, mostly empty as I see the machine emit more and more of that light in arcs and tendrils, like… like lightning.
One of them strikes my body, and I feel the world twist.
…
I come to with a lurch and confusion, as already the memories of the… other side are fogging up, becoming dream-like as I struggle to remember what I saw.
There was colour? Some sound… no… music that was calling for me to dream sweetly in a sea of colour. I struggle to capture the rapidly fading memories but they’re less precise by the time I open my eyes.
When I do I see an unfamiliar view, I am not in the tower anymore, to my side I see Miah, she looks tense and is panting as she kneels on the ground, she is looking upward towards something beyond me.
There is a constant noise of something like a war is happening all around us.
I’m about to ask what happened and what the hell is going on when I catch the look in her eyes, it is of pure abject terror, the kind where you give up all hope when the situation is so far out of your control you give up even moving, it’s what I imagine my eyes looked like when I gazed upon the Outcast.
Slowly ever so slowly I cradle her in my arms and look behind me and above.
It is just as terrible as I hoped it wasn’t.
Behind me, I see a terrible vista in both senses of the word. A city so grand and expensive I feel like it transcends the title of city, a metropolis perhaps, but even that feels lesser, it is a sprawling hive of towering buildings as far as the eye can see all decorated in neon lights, billboards, and glass that all seem to be now glowing red.
The city itself is separated in layers, as sky bridges and the like make ever-ascending floors that don’t seem to stop, and above, above comets fall through a dark sky bereft of stars, trailing tails of light that as my eyes follow their origin I can see massive machines of silvery steel with innumerable weapons-like protrusions upon a vaguely humanoid body that sits atop another vaguely horse-like body, they tower and surround most of the buildings even standing as far as the horizon, they are shotting these light comets constantly, all seeming to spiral along a central figure that Miah was staring at.
it looks… hard to describe.
It looks like three people in one body, one has soot and dirt-covered red skin and horns like the ones out of the billboard, and they are wearing a uniform of some kind, though it’s hard to pick out what emblems it has with it all being covered in filth and blood, its face in contrast from the one in the billboard looks horror-stricken and guilty all at once, they are tired and about to fall over, their weapon a sort of elongated and more sleek version of Stella’s pistol. Next to him is a face that hurts to look at as memories try to form from it but are refused by something, whoever they are they look grim and stern a bulky and very advanced-looking armour covers most of their body, it looks pristine and clean, especially next to the dirty soldier, the figure is spotless except for the sabre made of continuous spinning blades in their hands that is covered in blood. The final figure is the hardest to look at, they are a young woman covered in rags and wounds, their eyes are full of tears and she screams out in silence for what I can only assume is mercy, as she seems to be actively trying to get away from the other figures, she is in such terror she does not even realise the blood that seeps from her torso as she tries and tries to tear free.
I manage to tear my eyes away, because as terrible as the sight is, it does not call for me like the Outcast did. It sings its tune, yes, a whistle of some old forgotten lullaby that reverberates and seems to echo the screams of War in the background, but it simply doesn’t affect that primal part of my being, (it still quite hurts to look at it though.)
“W-What the hellls is going on?!” I hear Miah quietly scream out.
“Seems to me we’re sometime near the shattering.” a monotone voice replies
I actually let out a scream as Sallis pops out from the corner of the alleyway.
That out of anything seems to break Miah out of her trance as a maniacal giggle escapes her.
“Hells bell save me.” she manages to whisper
“Curious expression, irrelevant for now. Do you understand what you’ve done?.”
“I–” She stammers a reply
“You in your desperation funnelled the tower's powers into Sophia using some esoteric magical ritual in order to revive her.” She did?! What happened while I was out? “That had some obvious side effects that I would’ve been able to advise against if you had told me any of what you were planning, mainly not to do it, and now it seems your rash call has achieved the taboo of the empyrean and what we were trying to prevent in the first place.”
Miah mouth is agape and I can see the gears trying to turn in her head, but at least this Sallis rant has turned her attention from that thing in the sky.
I still think it was a bit too mean.
“Hey! Whatever it is that happened can’t seriously be all blamed on Miah, I mean we were already technically time travelling before with the whole time-loop business, and besides–”
“Fucking what?” is the reply I get from Sallis before I can even finish the sentence.
Miah also looks gobsmacked, but that might still be from the avatar of War above us, which speaking of, before Sallis can continue her questioning I continue.
“Look, main point, tower guy was already doing timely-wimely fuckery back there, so it’s not fair to chalk it up to Miah’s fault. And I don’t think we need to be assigning blame when that is above us.” I say while very carefully avoiding looking above us.
And as if to punctuate my point a huge rumbling occurs as from the horizon a beam of light that seems to engulf the sky comes flying towards the figure, the brightness almost too much for me to follow.
I for a split second thought that the problem would solve itself only for something to happen and the beam to be pushed to the side and half a second later in a far-off portion of the city a sun appears as the trembling intensifies and I see it isn’t a sun but a huge explosion that sends a mushroom-like cloud upwards, and even from how far it looks I still feel the after-shocks as they threaten to throw me to the ground and blind me as a storm of dust engulfs the streets and obscures our vision of it.
I quickly tighten my grip on Miah and with some effort summon some wind in the opposite direction of this dust storm.
I see Sallis sticking close to me and decide to enter the first building that I see.
That turns out to be one of the more tall towers of steel as I make it through the automatic glass doors, ignoring the building headache that all of this is bringing.
Inside is a lobby that once upon a time could have looked luxurious and classy, but that now has been ravaged by something, all of the furniture upturned and the metal floor stained by still somewhat fresh blood. On the centre hanging above what looked to be a reception desk is a sign, upon it inscribed “IDCR” with a red-skinned horned dismembered head resting atop the once golden “C”.
I dispel the wall of wind around me as the door closes and I take it all in.
I even prepare myself for the inevitable headache, but it never comes.
I hear Miah squeak and as I turn to look I see her pale as she points upward.
I look and see the ceiling has been absolutely covered with headless red-skinned corpses in such a way that it’s the only thing we’re able to see, they are somehow glued there and I can see that even the blood refuses to drip onto the floor.
I’m about to activate my wings to go up there and get a closer look, so I know what we might be dealing with, but just as my halo begins to spin Sallis grabs at my hand.
“Wait.” They say their voice not so devoid of emotion as all the other times, as they look upward. “I would recommend against taking any action right now.”
I look at them with confusion.
They tear their eyes from the gruesome ceiling decoration.
“If I must remind you all, we are not on our time, we have somehow committed the biggest taboo of my age and performed time-travel, any action we do here could have unimaginable consequences. The whole of history could change if we’re lucky or reality could simply collapse if we accidentally make a paradox, the potential for harm is too great to our universe. Miah, can you do what you did before but in reverse?”
Miah snaps out of her trance as she turns her gaze away from the ceiling.
“I… I don’t know.” She quietly confesses “I never even knew what I was doing was going to result in…in this, I was… drowning in my Domain and the only thing I could think of was saving you…” She sighs “I can try but without an anchor of time… energy? Sure, let’s go with that. Without that, I give small odds of repeating what I did. At least not without screwing up the universe in a different way” She says very clearly now knowing where to rest her eyes in this room and just settling for ogling my tits, though I sense little to no actual lust from the gaze.
I look outside and the dust storm is still strong. I try to think.
Maybe there’s some time anchor function on my halo? Seems unlikely and I wouldn’t even know how to activate it, Sallis clearly doesn’t have anything like that otherwise they’d already have spoken up by now, Miah likely can’t build one from nothing and according to Sallis going out and looking for material sounds like an expertly good way to break the universe. Think–
Suddenly the sound of a clock ticking manifests from my wrist. For a second I think the time pressure of the situation has got me hearing auditory hallucinations, but as look down and see where the sound emanates from I spot it.
The broken watch that Stella forcefully gave me, how did I forget? It was the last thing she did before she magicked her way out somehow. And that feels like something exceedingly important, I mean even with my mind preoccupied with the time-loop duel, it feels odd that I never questioned why she did that, or what the watch was doing and– oh.
Watch, time magic, only one to remember. Duh.
I look around at both Miah and Sallis who seem to be deep in thought, seemingly deaf to the sound.
“What about this” I say raising my watch to them.
They both look confused for a moment and I can see them physically struggling to see the watch but after a moment of intense concentration, Miah’s eyes widen.
“That is a monstrous amount of time and energy, how did you? You know what, it doesn’t matter. I’m on it” And saying so she immediately unlatches the watch from my forearm and starts tinkering with it. But not before throwing a salute…weird.
Sallis on the other hand isn’t so quick to dismiss the how.
“Why did she make us forget?”
“Huh?” That was not the question I was expecting.
“It's clear enough as to why she gave us that watch and why she disappeared as soon as possible after doing so. She somehow predicted that we would be in a situation where a time anchor would be necessary and somehow acquired one so that it could be then given to us at the last possible moment when we wouldn't have a chance to remove it, and she leaving either means shes confident in us accomplishing whatever task she wants us to perform or she simply did not want to be involved in the middle of this disaster.” She pauses” looking at the watch. “What I don’t get is why she made us forget the watch itself, and why do so for a few minutes at best.”
“A couple of hours you mean,” I say already my mind starting to catch up to the absolute mind-tiring duels I’ve been hading non-stop.
“No, seconds really, I don’t know how long you’ve been in that time loop, but from our perspective, Stella teleported out. The person in the tower accelerated you did too, a blur of action where I tried to hit what I thought was an enemy and suddenly you’re on the ground bleeding out.”
Wow.
“...Fuck…Maybe she just wanted me not to question what she’s attached to me and accidentally remove my only shot at… not dying… Which huh, still happened. Alright, I have no clue why she did that.”
“Either she miscalculated badly, or more likely there’s more at play.”
We fall into an uneasy silence only broken by the sound of the dust storm outside and the distant rumbling of weapons far too big to comprehend.
“Miah how long do we have to stay here,” Sallis says with uncharacteristic hurry in their voice.
For some reason, she looks at me first before looking back at Sallis.
“It depends really on how finicky the current Hume level is at this particular place, but reversal shouldn’t be too hard, especially with how much time and energy this watch has.” She pauses before settling her eyes on me again. “I will need to redo the symbols in your chest, Ma’am. They were reversed with your revival and that was the catalyst for getting us here, reversing the equation should get us out.” She says in a clear and almost practised tone.
Also, did she just call me Ma’mm!?
Sallis in a very un-Sallis way starts to pace around nervous energy practically radiating from them.
Ok, something weird is going on.
The rumbling gets louder for a second and through the storm, I make out the flash of that silvery steel. The war machines are closer now for some reason.
Then a scream.
It echoes out from outside, it sounds raw and panicked beyond reason, and for some reason brings to mind the third figure of the three-in-one. I see Sallis stiffen, but Miah keeps going as though she heard nothing, an emotionless mask cast over her.
I instinctively move towards the door to scan out for whoever let out that scream. But Sallis stops me by the hand.
I look back and notice how small Sallis looks, much more than usual that is.
“Stop. Whatever is out there will be our end. Let it pass over, whatever is happening already happened, to interfere would be risking the universe.” They try to sound sure, like they are reciting something they once heard but I notice an uncertainty in their voice.
“Are we sure the universe is this fragile? I mean from the looks of it it handles breaks in reality often enough. Are you really sure any change could spell doom?”
Another scream, closer now.
I let go of Sallis’s hand. They make their palms glow in response.
I look directly in their silver eyes, it doesn’t matter what they said way back, I see their soul. They will not shoot.
I run out of the building, they don’t follow.
Instantly I’m assaulted by the harsh wind and constant dust, and my visibility is extremely limited. Only really being able to see every time these war machines flash their weapons the light reflecting their cold silver body almost like lightning in a storm
I hear the scream again it’s coming from a nearby square. I catch glimpses of it, what was once a beautiful garden is now drowned by ash and dirt, and a statue of a stern and gorgeous horned Lady now lies in ruins its body toppled to its own feet.
Near I see the source of the scream, a young woman, with blue-ish skin and curved horns, she is wearing a now tattered pair of jeans with a black jacket over a shirt with a now faded round logo.
She doesn’t see me. Her vision focused on something past her.
I see it too once a flash illuminates the storm again. A group of people.
They look… intimidating, with fully enclosed tight-fitting silvery armour and a helmet/visor that doesn’t reveal a slip of their skin. Most importantly behind them, spinning away and forming a corona of Crimson light are halos, like mine and like mine they also have their wings out, though differently from me they only have a pair each and the colour follows the same scheme of the halo. Instantly here and now I loathe them, it actually disorientates me a bit the amount of disgust the sight of these traitors brings me. How dare they.
I don’t think. Of how I could use the element of surprise. Or how they outnumber me 5 to 1 or even the carbines they carry. Right here right now, they must be stopped.
I activate my halo, the pure pale blue growing brighter and brighter before I can finally see around me. It feels like lighting is bursting from every pore of my being.
They spot me. And they have the audacity of hailing me, a greeting coming from behind those soulless visors repressed bloodlust spilling from their voice.
“Hail sister! A fine day for righteous slaughter is it not? We had this little demon handled, but we can leave her to you in case you nee–”
I don’t wait for them to finish, I notice the look of horror on the girl's face as she turns to look at me, fear and hopelessness clear or what would be otherwise beautiful ruby-red eyes.
I simply raise from the ground activate ‘Haste’, and hit that bitch right where the mouth would be with a fistful of lightning.
The blow is perfect in every regard, and for a few microseconds, I relish the feeling of my fist cracking their helmet and meeting their face.
They fly a few feet back from the sheer force of the blow, their bodies limp on the ground. Dead or unconscious, I don’t care as I turn to the other 4.
They react slowly and I see them reaching to activate a button on their armour.
I spin a kick towards the closest one to me, also infusing it with lightning. It hits them right in their centre cracking the armour and possibly their ribs. They are also sent flying. I however don’t have the time to observe whether they too are out of the fight or not as the 3 remaining betrayers activate whatever mechanism in their suit they were reaching for and suddenly they too blur.
Well, not really.
They increase in speed most certainly, but seeing as I already have ‘Haste’ on it just looks like they stopped moving in slow-motion and are now moving normally. Quite frankly I’d say they were a bit slower than the figure in the tower.
However, they have an advantage the figure didn’t. Numbers. They scatter, each of them flying in a different direction while at the same time turning their carbines at me and aiming to fire.
I predicting something like this release the spell I’ve been building up. A flash of light energy explodes out of me like a cloud instantly covering all of us. And I know for a fact I succeeded when I sense exactly where they are inside the cloud.
See I noticed that I have a sort of constant awareness of where my light magic is at all times, it became obvious on the teleport station that even presumably thousands of miles away I could still feel it for a second. I simply applied the concept to an area of absolute brightness where only I can see.
Bonus this is costing me almost no mana. Double bonus though I will have to practice a little on that I also notice any displacement of that light magic, meaning when one of the betrayers turns the tip of their gun dangerously close to where I am I quickly dart out of the way and avoid a beam of crimson light so bright is briefly illuminates the sphere of perfect light I got.
I in response let out a decent but not overwhelming blast of lighting toward the one that shot me. It unfortunately fails to do any significant damage, as something absorbs it just before being able to explode on its body. I dodge another shot. The traitors quickly adapted and let out as many shots as they could presumably both wanting to illuminate more of the area and also hitting me.
I quickly press my rapidly waning advantage and fly to the closest one altering my flight path every time the barrel gets close to where I am.
I grab both of my hands and let out an overhead smash on the helmet, not fully cracking it open like the others, instead most of the force of the blow gets slowed by an invisible barrier, this moment of pause is however enough for two of them to finally line up a perfect shot and as I dodge out of the way of one the other barely grazes me, evaporating a perfect line of flesh near my ribs and cauterizing it instantly. The pain is terrible like a thousand hot needles just ripped through my side.
The only saving grace is that the force of my blow while not quite enough to send them flying was enough to rend them unconscious as they fell from the sky.
However, yet again, these bastards adapt quite quickly and in the literal flash of vision they had they manage to discern the situation and one of them throws some sort of round object toward me while the other keeps spraying me with rapid shots.
I obviously try to get as far away from the object as possible but somehow it keeps tracking me, flying straight at me.
I only have a moment to think and maybe a little foolishly I send out another blast of lightning.
It doesn’t explode, the violet tendrils simply get eaten by the object and when it’s about a foot away it beeps once and suddenly I can’t feel my Mana anymore.
All my spells drop.
The light cloud, the lightning infusion and most importantly my Haste.
The world speeds up.
I don’t stay still, not making that mistake again.
I look around trying to find somewhere to hide. I notice that during the fight we moved around so much that I was pretty close to the statue
I duck behind the remains, but not before receiving a searing shot through my belly, the light piercing straight through. It hurts so fucking much but I don’t feel like falling or dying just yet so it either missed my organs or hit something that will just kill me later.
Good news though I’m behind cover. What now?
It’s around then that I notice as I cradle my stomach that the… “demon” for lack of another descriptor is also hiding here. She looks quite baffled and I can see some hope back in her eyes, though it’s far out shadowed by the horror.
“Sweet Qin are you alright?!” She says while looking at my wounds, I struggle to respond. “Right, stupid question, uh fuck here, I don’t have much left but you clearly are better at it than I am.”
I’m about to question what she means when she turns my head to hers and… kisses me?!
I’m about to question if she lost her mind when I feel it, through the kiss, magic. And I don’t mean the metaphorical kind with butterflies in your stomach or whatever, actual magical energy flows to me and it is quite a hefty amount as well, easily replenishing 40 percent-ish of my total.
She retracts from the kiss panting and a purple blush on her face.
“Wow, that… that was better than I expected.”
I don’t quite respond focusing on the magic and re-casting my buffs. The world slows down, I look at my wounds, can’t heal them no use in wasting my energy trying, just gotta bear with it for now.
I project the area of light again, trying to get a better feel of where the enemies are. It doesn’t take long, though I do have to project the area quite a ways further. But they’re here, one of them is flying far above, likely trying to get me from above. The other is flying away, either running or looking for a better position, can’t allow that.
But how to do this, the guy above is still flying upwards and I feel like there’s going to be a limit on the are I can project light to, so if I were to act on one the other would likely get away or shoot me.
It’s around then that something happens, the ground starts to shake violently and the storm intensifies making me use the wind wall again, a flash of light so overwhelmingly bright it pierces my own brightness making me catch a glimpse of the city around as the war machines now surround us, or rather the avatar of war, as it now floats right above us.
And the reason for the light becomes clear as the three-in-one together hold a… the only way to describe it would be a flaming sword easily the size of a building, looking at it I know I’m not it’s not the whole story as I feel a deeper meaning to the terrible radiance it exuberates, the blistering searing heat it transmits and the sheer gravitas it brings. But for now, giant flaming sword works.
It’s currently being used to decapitate one of those war machines and also burn the skyscrapers behind it to pure blackened glass.
At the very least the traitors are also distracted which allows me to cut quite the distance to the one flying away, they even almost manage to hit me as their attention turns back, but even being able to see me now I can still detect the direction of the barrels allowing me to spin and dodge the beams, when I reach the run-away they to their credit don’t flounder around in a panic but instead hit some button on the carbine and a triangle shaped plasma blade forms in front of it.
Hm, that gives me an idea, but for now, I simply dodge under the first swing by dropping down in attitude, dodge a stab by a few millimetres and use the opening to elbow them in the stomach making them double over in pain, I sense the other betrayer aiming their barrel on me and deciding to not waste a dodge I flip in the air and bring a kick down to the run-aways spine, making them drop to the ground and also dodging the beam of light.
I finally turn my attention to the last one.
I taste it, the panic, the confusion and the betrayal they feel as if they had any right to.
“Why are you helping the enemy sister?! Why betray us for this filth? They brought all of this onto themselves! Our duty is to clean up a mess we should’ve cleaned up years ago, and yet here you stand betray–”
I literally cannot stand to hear one more second of this contemptible sanctimonious traitorous ASSHOLE.
So it comes to me as a shock as someone else beats me to the punch, shutting them up with a superheated ball of plasma right in their back, somehow penetrating their defence and burning a hole in their spine.
I drop the darkness and gaze upon the situation with my actual eyes.
I see a moment of stillness on the traitor almost dumbdoundness and then their wings flicker and disappear as they fall to the ground.
I look down in the direction I felt the shot come from and see them, Sallis with a smoking right hand and Miah still messing with the watch and still not displaying any actual emotion besides quiet obedience.
Thats about when reality stops making sense.
As from the skies a multicoloured but mostly white spear of light manifests, it is more than double, no triple the war machine's size and it seems to connect directly into the sky itself. It hangs directly atop the avatar of war. As soon as that appears the dust storm that has been violently raging dissipates, like the wind lost it’s power.
All the war machines around us bow down as one.
The Avatar looks up at the spear that I have no doubt in my mind will impale the very essence of war and it begins to unravel, shedding its pretension of being something that one could understand and taking on part of its true form.
The soldier stops looking like a soldier and instead takes on the appearance of guilt and obedience, of hate for the self and hate for the other.
The general stops being a figure to respect and quietly fear. Instead, it takes the impossible many armed form of everything that could be blamed for everything, its crimson icor drips from concepts of hatred so deep every creature could understand.
And finally, the victim cries herself into something less than pitiable, she becomes the terrible tears of loss, the horrific cries of terror and the quiet morn of the dead.
They are one in all, three in singularity, a crimson point of perfect hatred both for itself and all that dare still live in its presence.
It becomes War.
And before I have a chance to join its crusade against itself and the other, before I can offer my own blood and guilt to the being I know would crush me and hate like I and all deserve. The spear drops and War is run through right down the middle.
I blink as my thoughts return to my own and witness an impossible being that incarnates the terrible nature of war itself being impaled to the ground and writhe in pain.
The spear shines in its incomprehensible colours and sprouts thorns which penetrate the flesh of a god and keep it bound.
I think it’s about this point that my brain officially gives up, and simply turns my head downwards so that I can instead look at comprehensible things for once.
Sallis, Miah and the Demon are all on their knees and I can see that they too have given up on understanding what stands above us.
Miah is the first one to recover as she shouts form me.
“Commander I need to carve the runes now!”
I ignore her calling me commander as clearly us being to close to the avatar is causing some effects, and fly down to her.
“I need you to lie down for this.” I do so as she grabs a hatchet by her hip. “Oh and also bite down on something this will not be pleasant.”