The little bit of cloud that remained of Xopil floated eerily in space. He withdrew his conciousness from deep within his core, and checked into his surroundings. Where am I? What is this place? How did I get here? Where am I going? What should I do? And... who am I?

He asked himself a myriad of questions but no answers came. I live for myself... I do what I feel like doing. I go where I want to go... Maybe that's selfish, but that's what I've decided.

"Xopil?" a feminine voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Is that my name?" the cloud thought.

"It was, and not that long ago." the feminine voice responded to his thought.

The cloud thought, "One name is as good as another. But, why do I detest this name?"

"Do you want a new one?" The feminine voice asked.

"Who are you?" the cloud asked.

"Xiara was the name you gave me." she replied.

"Xiara?" the cloud asked, "And I gave you this name?"

"Yes, and we had quite the adventure together." Xiara went into detail about all the memories they had together.

"Why can't I remember any of that?"

"You really are something else... Are you completely unaware of your recent actions and their consequences?" Xiara asked, "Well I suppose wiping your own memory would pose such a problem, but to not remember doing it at all...would mean you also purged the memory of you erasing your memory.  What a paradox."

"I can feel you shaking your head at me."

"It's just your imagination." Xiara said as she stopped shaking her head.

"But if you want a new name..." Xiara added, "how do you feel about Astrix?"

"Astrix...it could grow on me." the cloud replied.

"Then it's settled. Nice to meet you, Astrix." Xiara said.

"Likewise, Xiara." Astrix replied, "Maybe you can help me out... I have no idea where I am, or where I'm going."

"Well... you're in the middle of space, and traveling pretty fast.  The last planet you were on is now about a million miles behind you, and the closest is roughly a hundred-thousand miles just a bit to your right," Xiara offered.

"Is that nearest planet capable of sustaining life?" Astrix asked.

After a slight delay, "There are signs of life, so yes." Xiara replied.

"I'll go there then." Astrix looked around, taking note of the giant lump of rock and moved in that direction.

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"Astrix huh?" Xopil asked slightly amused.  Xiara shrugged.

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"Not really surprising considering he just severed all memories and even removed Xopil's presence from his core, so him ditching his name too?  Not really much of a stretch." Boris added.

"Let's see what's going on at this planet he's heading to." Xopil stated as he shifted the monitor he was viewing to the specific planet.  "I do hope he's not planning on getting a body from there..."

"Why?" Xiara asked as she looked over his monitor. "No humanoid forms, huh?"

"He's got potential right?  Let's just see what he does." Boris stated.

Xopil frowned slightly as millions of monitors appeared in his vision.  With a tired sigh, he sent blasts of magic into each one.

Did he truly just do that? Xiara asked herself as she watched the explosions turn into mushroom clouds.  "Was that necessary?"

"My priority is maintaining balance.  That's never changed." Xopil replied in a flat monotone voice as the monitors vanished from his view.  "I don't kill wantonly, only systematically and efficiently when necessary."

"That still seemed a bit over the top... all things considered." Xiara complained.  "You blew up entire planets just now."

"Painless instant deaths all of them." Xopil replied. "Besides, there was so much out of balance in all those worlds I just took the most efficient option to clear up several million instances at once."

"This..." Xiara was about to argue.

"How long have you observed me, known my job, and accepted it.  Why now is it an issue?" Xopil asked.

"You've never done a cleansing on such a massive scale before.  Wiping out literally millions of entire planets at a time." Xiara answered.

"There's one of me and millions of balance issues just popped up... none of them were otherwise 'easy fixes'.  Efficiency." Xopil replied.

"I thought you despise killing?" Xiara continued.

"What I have to monitor has suddenly exploded exponentially.  Balance must be maintained." Xopil replied as he sent more magical blasts into monitors, although the resulting explosions were held back by a lot.  "I'd like to see you observe past, present and future of just a single timeline possessing infinite possibilities and then we'll talk about my methods."

Astrix, I hope you can handle this task... and I'm sorry for putting this burden on your shoulders. Xiara thought.

"Xopil..." Boris started, "I have to agree, your methods are a bit too... widespread.  Even considering all that you're watching over."

"Noted." Xopil replied indifferently.  Boris still does have authority over him after all, so he does need to give Boris' words some weight.

Another monitor popped up in Xopil's vision.  A little blue cloud floating in space was pictured.  Xopil sent a magical beam into the screen without a second thought and turned his attention elsewhere.

"NO!" Xiara yelled.

"It's a threat to balance in the future." Xopil said flatly and continued on, losing himself in his job.

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My danger sense is tingling. Astrix thought to himself, Wait, do I have such a thing?

Space seems to have gotten brighter in the direction I'm going... that can't be right?  Space doesn't just start emitting light. He cast his vision behind him and saw a light coming towards him.  A light bearing a force of massive destructive potential.

Dafuq is that!? Astrix screamed internally as he scrambled to get out of the way of the apocalyptic calamity coming his way, seemingly aimed straight for him.  It's too large and too fast!

The beam hit Astrix as the little cloud barely managed to put up an antimagical barrier around itself.  The beam of light refracted slightly, but still opening a safe spot for the cloud as the beam passed.  Behind him, the planet he was heading toward wasn't so lucky, taking the full brunt of the beam, the planet cracked and disintegrated instantly.  The beam continued on, instantly wrecking anything it came close enough to.

Thank goodness for muscle memory, Astrix thought to himself as he looked in the direction the light went, but what was that barrier I used?  Never mind that... that beam was aimed for me?  Who did I piss off now and how for that matter?

The light blue cloud slowly dispersed like smoke and turned black, blending into the space around it.  Xopil watched the monitor with a frown.  It appeared as though the cloud was destroyed, but since the monitor didn't disappear, that meant the threat still lingered.

"Playing dead won't hide you from me," Xopil said flatly, "And it seems you still have control over antimagic.  What a bother that is."