The sixth
Irritating.
Altica explained everything just moments before. Clear and concise, in the manner he strictly reserved for those he respected, yet my mind reeled. The explanation was coherent, acceptable even. My ascent to power ended the same way it had truly begun – upon nearing transcendence, my goals shifted from gaining power towards applying it. The Errant had changed, that much was evident. I had fallen here in the true line. I should have continued my ascent, foolish. Now I was but a memory of my own shadow, plucked from the strands of time - the child of a chronology which never existed. At the strongest he could muster, but unable to progress. Altica had not ceased his ascent. He left it behind.
Irritating.
Altica had been lying. His words were truthful, but Altica schemed. When he could be struck down, his schemes were tolerable, contained. Now nothing could strike him down, nor contain him. My current power served as testament to his achievement – a new prime, he named it. He phrased it such to suggest the act of blending timelines, fictional and real, had been draining. I never knew that he was or would ever be capable of this, it seemed impossible even to me. My old friend was ever full of surprises, surprises and sophistry. As his creation, he had given me compulsions - a series of conditions to be fulfilled and tasks to be completed. After which I would be free to fade or stay, Altica cared not. Lies.
Irritating.
The first task appeared asinine - destroy an Errant bastion, located in a far flung corner of the galaxy where energy flowed not. Upon observation, I recognized this variant. He intended to safeguard a world of children. They were sentient but without talent, although one might have been fooled by the impartment at a glance. That had come to fruition then, and the secrets of transcendence mattered no longer. Not to one such as me. In review, I found no hint of his plans. Time had run out. As a mere remnant, I was somewhat reliant on reserves gifted by him - or so Altica supposed. In turn, I supposed some of my secrets survived my plummet. Altica warned me this might not be easy, ridiculous.
Irritating.
Reduced to gently accelerating rocks, I had been forced to wait but the leading stone would impact soon. The bastion defended itself with a lance of light, albeit slower, and annihilated my initial probe. Gate-fueled? The Errant cared much about nothing, it would seem. I listened when Altica warned me, thus my assault continued. A barrage of regular and imbued meteorites followed the first. I attached myself to a regular rock to cover my approach. In the past, a single throw would have sufficed.
Irritating.
The imbued projectiles arrived in streaks of white, a final acceleration imparted during my preparations. The bastion deployed its countermeasure once more, splitting it into a manifold stab of light. It kept firing. The waste of resources was profound. Despite traveling at speed, they were but rocks. Rocks! Gate-fueled strikes which should annihilate an ascendant were used to swat dirt from the sky. And they failed, somehow. An impact followed the missed interception and damaged the exit, barely. The sheer insanity of it all was…
Enough.
I abandoned any pretense of stealth. All the imbued distractions had been reduced to dust. A beam approached my hiding place; I left the last stone still in the void, momentum stolen. This close, I brushed it with a wingtip as a test - disintegrated. With my earlier suspicions confirmed, I weaved away from attempts to track me. Successfully, as expected. Power was a poor replacement for skill. I condemned the shooter for having much of the former and little of the latter and sped up. My landing proved uneventful, my timing flawless. What should have caused a wave of destruction did not displace even a single speck of dust.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
The accumulated force suffused my being, empowering my movement. Another lance aimed for me, easily avoided. I followed the hole it left, exploiting the pause between attacks to allow me unhindered entry. The fool retreated deeper into the complex and sent guardians to bar my path. I entertained the notion of striking it down from here, but decided against it. A mistake, the fodder was wholly uninteresting and slaughtered at touch. Another beam punctuated another failure. A heedless acceleration brought the end to this nonsense all the closer. Layers shattered and I crashed through the ceiling, almost at the core.
The final guardian, while exhausted and strained, was quick enough to respond. I graced it a glance – a cheap bipedal imitation of true life. It kicked at my head while readying… another lance? It behaved as if it had caught me unawares but anticipated evasion. The attack connected against my temple and the Errants’ head exploded. Fast, strong and stupid. A link had been opened just as it thought to have struck me and the lack of a target displaced the backlash. Someone would pay the price.
The floor gave not, which forced me to the stairs leading into the heart of this place. I despised everything about it. Gate-links, forced evolution and the reflection of some forgotten natural. All these wasted assets, to guard what?
An odd core beyond my recognition, I whisked it from its cradle towards the palm of my claw. A final layer of defense surrounded it. Passivity? Direct damage would prove insufficient and I had no means of indirect attack. I did not care. This immunity would be put to test. I condensed all of my stolen might, and then drew more and more from the surroundings, unwilling to expend my own. Kinetic force obeyed my will and concentrated into a spike, it plunged and the room trembled when it reflected off the sphere. Even my mastery failed to prevent the ricochet. I determined the cause to be sheer violence. My second attempt failed as well.
Irritating.
This would not do. I drew upon my own link, the familiar crash of the flow unyielding as ever. A wing flared and feathers burned as they were consumed by the tide. I let myself hear the screech of friction as the third nail caused a fracture, then a flicker even beyond my senses rent the moon itself and the bastion went with it. The core died and my link closed. Passivity would not stop me. Nor was there anything powerful enough left to contest my control. I expelled the last of my overflowing power before it could consume more of me and pulled the shards of the shattered moon together, grinding every remaining Errant between to dust.
Altica had been forthcoming about the changes he incorporated. He forsook my name to claim Title with a new trick to force such a thing. Comprehension eluded me despite his explanation. That was the problem with Altica’s schemes. They succeeded far more often than not, with tolerable detriments. I did not look forward towards living through eternity, forced to call myself ‘The Last Resort’…
Yet the power it granted was intoxicating.
Irritating.
Mother:
“Close. You almost had him,” Sneaky-mother said.
“Well done… Try again…” Mother-mother said.
Mother-mother was sleepy. She could tell. Mother-mother hurt.
She was sorry.
But she was also happy.
They didn’t see! They didn’t see! She had a secret.
Sneaky-other cheated. His pieces were better. It wasn’t fair. But that was okay. She would win in the end.
She always did.
And now she had a new piece.
The System:
The attack had been more than clever. It was insidious, vectored through information and self-referential in nature. It changed things as quickly as he could correct them. Every correction spawned another error. A wave cascaded through him. He chased it, inevitably returning to where and whence it began.
This led to learning and gained insight, about himself, into the very nature of transcendence. The Errant had made a mistake. He would never have undertaken this exercise willingly. It fascinated him.
It was power.
He applied this newfound knowledge in an experiment both old and new, one with a fivefold history of disappointment. A better result, yes.
A monster had been created, now let loose.
He waited, gaining insight.
Soon.