As I entered the parallel reality, closing the portal behind me, and watched Szabo wrestle with the monster, I thought that it really needed a name. Monster, freak and creature got repetitive after a certain point, speaking from experience.

Sifting through its past, it had never gotten a name that had stuck, certainly none it recognised as its own. Alien synonyms to the terms I had just discarded, long-winded titles used for nameless gods of terror...no. I would not do them the honour of calling on them from beyond oblivion, even in such a small way. Nor would I speak the being's true name. It wouldn't bind or weaken it-it was no demon. If anything, it was more likely to strengthen or mutate it.

My godsight was much faster than the mind that triggered it, as it needed to in order to predict and analyse on the scale it did. I could see every cubic metre in the universe, a quark in empty space, the quantum strings our reality was woven from, innumerable to most, the quantum foam it floated on, like a leaf on the surf. And I saw every way they could combine and change, a number not merely too large to be contained by the universe, but infinite.

And from every possibility, another reality was created. Did that man brush his teeth this morning, or not? Did those atoms fuse, or not? And so on and so forth, unto the infinity that was the multiverse's fourth layer. Opening my godsight wider, I could see the contents of every reality, laid bare and unmoving before eyes that cared nothing for time and distance. Infinite power to process...and change. Even reach into the higher layers, maybe, like a drawing rising from the page to become tridimensional...

But, no. I couldn't let myself be lured away by knowledge and exploration. If I won here, I would be one step closer to an eternity of study and enrichment. If not...well. I wouldn't have to worry about getting distracted, or anything else, anymore.

This had been what had made Mimir so distant to the Aesir who had wanted him for his knowledge, friends with only other gods like him. I saw him disappear from Odin's side, not stolen, but...ah, old god, such a selfish sacrifice you made...

You knew it would all end: the questions, the phantom pain-how could you not? You knew more than me, had seen reality as it was for far longer than the sagas of your kind had passed among your worshippers. Did you think about the blessing in disguise that would come to me, the darkness your death would push back? Or did you just want it all to end?

I blinked away the vision with eyes rimmed by tears. Distraction...always a danger, as painless as it was cruel. The cousin of ennui. But I would not walk in Mimir's footsteps.

The beast needed a name. It was the shape of its universe's fears: immense, amorphous, ever-changing. It had made its victims tremble before their deaths. I knew what it was, even if it did not.

The Tremorph was not a physical being. You would have had an easier time grasping reality itself than grabbing hold of it. Luckily, strigoi could do both. Whatever something was made of, whether matter, energy, their absence or something else entirely, we could touch it as if it were solid.

The Tremorph had not known that, until now. In its home reality, it had never been stopped by anything, passing through forcefields denser than neutronium and hotter than plasma, diving into black holes to swim through their singularities, flying through white holes. It was made of fear, after all. What did it care for the limits imposed by physics, according to which it should not have even been able to exist?

As such, the Tremorph was not used to being touched never mind stopped. As for pain? It only knew that of others. Szabo seemed very keen on helping it make up for lost time.

As it thrashed and writhed in his grip, it tried to change shape and size several times, to no avail. Whether it became bigger than any celestial body or smaller than any particle, Szabo, drawing upon the aether, pushed it back into its original state, with a combination of strength and willpower, the latter abundant due to his rage.

Szabo had several weird mental hangups, and I hadn't yet learned all of them. He performed atrocities without batting an eye, as long as the results were flamboyant enough to have him recognised as something other than a monster who was cruel for cruelty's sake. He was obsessed with leaving his mark on history, in one way or another. He might have used tools, and people, in pursuit of said goal, but, as he saw it, he relied only on himself.

The lifeforce he had absorbed over the course of his unlife had been consumed in similarly appropriate moments. I guess he thought fighting the Tremorph wasn't dramatic enough, because his temper was rising as fast as his power. And his voice.

Szabo wasn't actually speaking, of course. Not only was there no air at all in this universe (not that there would have been any in the vacuum of space), there was nothing at all. No matter, no energy, no space, no time, and not just because there was nothing to measure the duration of. That point of spacetime that had expanded into the Big Bang and never stopped had never existed here, according to my godsight. This...was what our reality could have been.

Nothing at all. More like a gap between other, true universes, becoming distinct at the edges, giving way to the aether, which Szabo was using to talk to the Tremorph.

Ah, mana. The truly universal means of communication, creation, and destruction.

'You made me betray myself,' Szabo growled around one of the Tremorph's throats as he bit down into its metaphysical form. 'Betray my oath. Any coffin-dodger like me can draw upon the aether for power, so what is its worth?' Szabo glared as a basilisk's head rose from its torso, trying to petrify him. Even his mismatched clothes were unaffected as he smashed the head to nothing with his left fist.

'You made me bow to  necessity,' Szabo spat. 'Necessity! Like a peasant! Loric Szabo does not bend to the whims of the world! He bends it!'

He was referring to the world, but must've seen the Tremorph as a suitable substitute, given the way he grabbed a beaklike protrusion and a handful of thin, lashing tails, before folding the Tremorph in half like an accordion.

Weird. I'd have never taken Szabo for a musician.

The Tremorph's shrieks tore the void open, letting raw mana fill the empty universe. There were many theories about the origin of the aether. Was there a spring for that timeless ocean? Rivers flowing into it?

Occam's Razor, people. Mana is born from the synchronisation of mind, body and soul. Wherever could mana spanning the multiverse come?

Szabo was hurting the Tremorph, but not killing it. He couldn't, except by consuming it like he did lifeforce and other metaphysical energies, and the fact it had already pushed him to boost himself just to avoid being torn apart meant he wanted to leave that for last.

Idiot! Don't draw it out, I spoke into Szabo's mind.

Be silent, brother. This is my fight. This little freak has already humiliated me. I will return the favour before I put it down.

You've never even heard of this thing before today! When did you have time to build up a grudge so fast? Are you Italian?

 Tch, he grunted. A great enough slight can birth a vendetta in moments.

Oh, for fuck's sake...I thought to both him and myself, watching the Tremorph begin to draw on cosmic fears. I saw a glob of antimatter teleported straight into Szabo's mouth, explosively converting him and his clothes to energy. The strigoi healed from nothing an instant later, naked and twice as angry as before.

In that moment between discorporeality and healing, I saw Szabo's soul and mind float away from the Tremorph, glaring at it with eyes like jagged voids. I knew only holy power could truly harm a strigoi, but seeing Szabo like this...

I tried to forget the sinking feeling in my gut by focusing my godsight on the Tremorph, which looked just as twisted as its physical aspect. Bladed tendrils flew from its torso, a Planck length wide, slicing the strigoi apart on the smallest level observable by human science. The cuts healed almost as fast as they were made, so the blades seemed to phase through Szabo with no effect save the explosions resulting from the minuscule cuts.

Seeing small scale wasn't working, the Tremorph switched strategies. Moons were spun from the nightmares of whole planet-bound species fearing extinction through colony drop. All of them, the smallest outweighing our moon, the largest approaching Mars in mass, were turned to stray atoms by Szabo, who flew straight through them, making a beeline for the retreating monster, not batting an eye at the enormous explosions. The moons were soon replaced by planets, thrown at blueshifting and redshifting as they accelerated, until only the Tremorph's power prevented them from turning into energy as they reached lightspeed. The creature compacted and shaped the planets until they were reduced to the size of longswords, then directed them at Szabo's eyes, point gleaming.

Szabo sneered at the sight, drawing more mana into himself, so that the projectiles shattered on his eyeballs. The Tremorph had failed to meaningfully hurt him so far, but I knew this couldn't last. The stronger Szabo got, the more feral his strigoi side grew. He might have been in tune with his instincts but how long would that last?

As I watched the Tremorph pelt Szabo with cosmic disasters, focusing hypernovas and gamma ray bursts until they were man-sized beams, compressing neutron stars until they were head-sized projectiles that flew as fast as light, I told myself it would be his nature that did him in. After all, Szabo was much faster than light by now. He could have flown circles around any of the dozens of attacks, instead of deciding to fly through them to show that he was too tough to damage.

Yet, seeing Szabo laugh soundlessly through attacks that would have destroyed any star, mouth parted in a fanged, snarling grin, I began to doubt that possibility. His strigoi side was getting wilder and more monstrous with every moment, but it was still fighting alongside him, or at least not against him. He was growing more and more powerful every instant, but so was the Tremorph, empowered by the fear he represented and tried to inspire in it.

Then, I cursed, using Mimir's perception to twist the void and strands of mana around the Tremorph as it ripped nightmares of gods out of itself, and Szabo screamed.

This time, there was no amusement or cruel joy in it.

***

 Urziceni

Constantin staggered at the being's words, only catching himself halfway through a step backwards.

What was he  doing? Trying to get away? No amount of time and distance would ever save him from this thing, nor would the aether or the void behind it all. It-

No. He wasn't trying to escape it, he realised. Not physically. Not literally. What, then? What it represented? The implication?

No. No "implication". He was deluding himself. It had directly stated it wanted David, for whatever its purpose was.

Constantin knew little of the being that had allowed him to call it Hogge, and wore that form for decades in a fit of tomfoolery. He did not know, for example, if his baseline level of power would be enough to defeat it, or at least stall it enough that he could either convince it to leave his son alone, or warn David, wherever he was.

That, the Lord had not seen fit to tell him. Much like the being's actual power, however much of it was hidden behind that dreadful chill it radiated, as if it was generating heat rather than absorbing heat, his son's whereabouts were hidden from him.

But David still lived. That, he could feel, in his heart of hearts. If his son had died again, or come close to it, he would have known. There was no faithcraft in that, no hidden power. Merely the intuition of a neglectful father, holding on to what he had already lost once.

It-the Hogge-thing-was toying with him, taunting him. Did it already have an use in mind for David? Or had it raised the possibility just to rattle him?

And why did every last damnned being in existence seem hellbent on treating his son as a tool or resource to be used?

Constantin relaxed his hands, which had already begun clenching into fists. Would God grant him the power to stop this being? The might of his faithcraft depended on both his belief in the Lord and the favour returned by the Creator.

Tch. A better question would be, did God see it as necessary for the creature to be deterred? He had, not to sound presumptuous, never seen fit to shed light on its nature, leaving Constantin with only its claims.

And if this thing somehow turned out to be Azrael, participating in some secret, long-term test of faith at God's behest, he would eat every cross and icon in his house.

'Do not approach David with malice,' Constantin said, looking at the ceiling, not at the being, hands together. 'He has been through enough, and will hesitate to end you less than I will.' Was he speaking to it? God? Had his selfishness finally pushed him into madness? Apostasy?

'Malice?' the thing echoed, now in front of him despite not moving its body, nor crossing the distance between them. 'I am incapable of such things, priest. This is not the boast people make. I cannot feel. Entropy is my shadow. I am DEATH-more than death, and destruction, and everything between and beyond. I end what must end, and guard what must begin, watch over it as it grows. I kill what must never be in its crib, before it can pervert the cycle of life and death, of beginnings and ends. Do you know what creation would be like if I could fall to something as subjective as emotion?'

'Shouldn't life watch over itself? Or LIFE, if you insist?' Constantin asked, avoiding the being's own question.

DEATH inclined its head to the side-a purely human gesture, he felt, it had made for his benefit, rather than out of habit. It was showing him that it had thought about that, and was maybe just a little exasperated by the question.

'Not yet,' it whispered. 'LIFE was almost aborted, at the beginning. You have only ever known life, the myriad facets of its failed cast-offs. Do you have any idea what it is like there, Outside the Gates? Many of my siblings are in the lower levels of creation. Too many, in any circumstance. Far too many on this Earth...but, perhaps, no more than necessary. You will have a call, Constantin.'

The priest only caught a glimpse of a black, grinning pig, eyes flashing yellow before turning black once more. Then, it was gone, back to the pen, though he had a feeling it would not appreciate any attempts at pursuing it.

Instead, Constantin raised his voice. 'Why do you want my son? What are you going to do to him?'

And to his surprise, it answered, speaking inside his soul. 'Make him my Keeper, for he will keep my laws and enforce them. Keep me from going too far, as well.'

Constantin did not like the sound of that, but he refused to show uneasiness. It would have felt too much to him like an admission of defeat. 'Your laws?'

'Mine, and my creator's. You know it, yes? Him, if you insist?'

And now it was throwing his own words back at him. 'God? God made you?'

Some of his colleagues might have thought anything that implied the opposite preposterous, but Constantin had always felt too much like one of the blind men for comfort. And, in the recent years, he could not help but feel that he, and everyone else, was grasping something he only thought was an elephant by something he could only pray were tusks.

'God...Yahweh?' An impression of a head lowering, then shaking. 'No. Of course not. I came from the stirrings of creation's urge, as we all did. When the Dreamer laid down to sleep, knowing it could not yet create while awake. That potential has not yet been reached, you see? Creation is preparation for after the dream ends, not in oblivion, but to usher in the greatest beginning.' Its voice softened. 'Fear not, priest. I have had Keepers before. Other champions. Other enforcer-guides. I hope this one will be the last.'

'You did not answer,' Constantin's voice came out in a harsh whisper. 'What are you going to do to David?'

'Empower him. Lift him up. He does not desire more power, but he must receive it.' A note of amusement. 'You fear punishment. For him, not you. Yes? Have I punished past Keepers? Being discarded was certainly torture, for some. But I doubt it would be, for your son. His family will console him.'

Constantin chuckled nastily. 'It is very optimistic to think I will be able to console him, in the scenario you describe. After all, I doubt David could live with whatever failure would make you strip away his power.'

'Indeed, Constantin. It would be very optimistic to think you will be able to console anyone, at that point. How fortunate, then, that I was not speaking of you.'

Constantin focused on his anger, rather than the roiling in his stomach or the shiver down his spine. 'What do you-'

Then, the voices came.

***

I am standing on a parapet, on a wall infinitely tall, wide and thick. Golden bas-reliefs spread beneath me, in all directions, like the infinity they give form to.

I see my siblings, of Hosts higher and lower.

Guardians and messengers, turning cities and countries to steaming craters with their gaze and touch, where needed, as they outrace beams of sunlight across the worlds they circle a hundred times in a blink of a human's eye.

Warriors, like myself. Different, rather than lesser, moons splitting under their armaments as they do battle, flitting between worlds and suns in a heartbeat. My Host.

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Upholders of hearth and nation, of office and mantle. Worlds shatter under their steps like the eggshells they walk on around their assigned opposites.

This is the Sphere Beneath. Mock them not, for their function is humble, rather than worthless. Our foes confuse the two at their peril.

Mighty ones, keeping watch over the laws of nature, not state, no matter the sphere or the void between them. How our kin below loathe them...

Virtuous ones, conducting the dance of particle and planet, the flow of energy and time. They find neither pride nor pleasure in their duty. Merely purpose.

Lords of lords, illuminating the choirs under them with the light of those above. There is worth to be found in this conveyance.

This is the Sphere Between. Break their laws, if you wish. Retribution is patient and untiring.

The seats of love, not power-His, contemplated and shared. Wheels within wheels. Why should the betrayers assume monstrous shapes, the humans think, when there are such beings already?

The fullness of wisdom, four-faced and four-winged, so they might fly and conceal themselves, like the places assigned to them, at once.

The burning ones, first of us all, at whose forefront once stood the greatest of us. Have their songs grown more ardent since then, to restore their honour? Perhaps they themselves know not.

This is the Sphere Above. Sneer not at them, for there is no sycophancy before the Throne, and no sloth to be found under His eyes.

This is His army, infinity ninefold, pure in thought and deed as the fiercest of flames.

I love them all, as only a brother and commander can. I know what I lead. There is power here, to reduce a cosmos and its contents to nothing, in a single burning one. My siblings beneath are mighty still, in their own ways, marching without time or place, endless in number, united in thought.

And yet, there are battles we cannot, must not fight, except at the sidelines, in skirmishes, in the shadows of conflagration.

I see one now. The skinthief, the Keeper that might not yet be, the shape of terror. The battle had been even, up to a point. The skinthief had grown stronger-as powerful as a mighty one. Yet he lays writhing, falling apart like the seams that have always marked him. And the Keeper is yet young and unprepared, beleaguered. He might still lose, and this might all turn out to have been for naught.

If not for another one rejected by the grave he rejects in turn. I see him charge across realities, clad in armour that is as much as part of him as his pale, dead flesh, cold despite the flames burning in his veins, as much as the blade he hefts, fit to deal wounds that cannot heal.

I see eyes blaze green with battle-lust rather than envy and greed, pride and resentment, for once. I hear him mockingly thank the monster for letting itself be dragged away from his realm, so that he need not worry about the world.

Though he knows it not, he is not as cruel as the child he once was. I see the arrogance chipped away, under the ice of betrayal, in the fires of battle.

In chambers he still sees as a house of torture and humiliation-for how else can he see being treated as an equal, or even an inferior, even in jest?-, too, though that is not my tale to tell, for all that it brings a smile to my face.

My nephew told him he would never find a worldly woman, nor be found by one. He should have listened, for my nephew has experience with such matters.

But then, we did not facilitate his return so he would listen.

I see the blade sheathed, and the Prince Rebellious striking the shape of fear with closed fists. The first blow deals no damage, but leaves his hand and gauntlet shattered. They are healed instantly, just as the next blow staggers the monsters. It is still unhurt, until the third punches through it, and the fourth cleaves it in half.

The Neverking is carved into creation by rebellion itself. Anything that restrains or opposes him feeds his power, which rises to never fall, and changes to match the needs of a battle. Such changes are permanent. In this regard, he is superior to his closest match, whose desire for freedom always leads her back to her initial state.

The creature backs off, wailing. At first, it moves too fast for the Blackest Knight to perceive, but his power does not allow such gaps for long. A moment later, he is on it. Then, he is tearing it apart too fast for it to register anything other than the pain.

I do not lay down my spear yet. I see the skinthief, struck down by the horrors of gods long gone and unremembered. I see the Keeper hesitating, because, for all that he knows how to save the skinthief, he knows not if he wants to. I pray, beloved one, that you do not falter as your namesake did.

***

Adam stared up at the swarm of Vyzhaldi approaching him.

Swarm, rather than party or crowd. Dehumanising, perhaps, if such a thing even applied to literal aliens, but the Kratocrats had given him little reason to use gentler terms.

Adam was fully aware that he was generalising following an unfortunate situation, like many people had done to him. He found it hard to care.

Adam's mind had been superhuman to start with, able to learn new languages and memorise books in hours to days. The learning capacity of an infant, coupled with the mental ability of an adult.

During his slumber, and after his awakening, his mind had grown, becoming faster, deeper, attuned to existence and nonexistence both. From matter and energy to spacetime and mana, from minds and souls to nothingness, he could create, control and shape most facets of creation, as well as their absence.

With exceptions, of course. The Vyzhaldi, by some quirk of the same strange biology that allowed them to function without sustenance or rest (for all that they had evolved, not been created. Not uncommon, as Adam saw, looking back through deep time, peering across existence, but certainly impressive when paired with their physical prowess), were also immune to esoteric effects, whether technological, arcane or anomalous. This, combined with their ability to jump in power, speed and toughness by leaps and bounds when exerting themselves, made them formidable to most species and highly-desirable enforcers, bodyguards and mercenaries. Despite the fact the increases in durability were permanent, with an exception.

The leader, or spokesman (bug? Male, at least, Adam's senses told him), a hulking figure with yellow eyes and a purple exoskeleton, floated cloaser to Adam, wings beating hundreds of times faster than light, in defiance of the physics and biology Adam's world had known at the time of his departure.

Not that either had been able to explain his nature, of course.

'Good arrival,' the Vyzhaldi attempted to mouth the words with his mandibles, rather than rely on a comm like the border guard Adam had dispatched. Come to think of it, he  had doubted anyone could sound that annoying naturally. Explained why he had mangled "welcome", too, though Adam was unsure a normal human would have been able to understand the Kratocrat's body language at all. 'Terran, yes?'

'Correct,' Adam answered, voice echoing in the aether. 'Are you here to continue what your kin started? Know that I will repay any violence in kind.'

The Vyzhaldi tilted his head slightly, confused at the mention of kin. 'Not my...ah. You mean same species? Yes, she is. Was. Unlike you and humans, no?' A pair of bulky fingers rose to point at his chest and head, while the Vyzhaldi rapped his other hand against his own head. 'No vital signs. Biologically inert. No decay, no parasites, no activity. How?'

'How do you know?' Adam shot back, feeling the remaining atom of that alien world spin between his own, trying to take them over. Useless. He was aware of himself on every level, and could have snuffed it out or rendered it loyal to him with but a thought, but he had neither the need nor the desire. His physiology alone would keep it at bay. 'And why should I tell you?'

'Angry, yes. Expected. But think.' The alien hesitatingly raised his arms, holding his hands out. Was he unfamiliar with the gesture, or just moving slowly so Adam would see he had no ill intent? 'She was young. No Shield of Scars. No School, yet. Never, now.' A twinkle of regret in those multifaceted eyes. 'We-'

'I knew of neither of those things,' Adam cut him off, uncomfortable with the guilt that rushed to the forefront of his mind. 'I still don't know what they are.'

Snuffing out a young, by all appearances, life because of things he likely would have done himself? Really? What was he becoming-

'Outsider. See...' The Vyzhaldi trailed off, not looking for his words, but rather, glancing at their surroundings, or lack thereof. 'Improper here? No decorum. Come. Understand.'

'To your planet?' the undead asked, fascinated by the possibility.

The Vyzhaldi turned around and flew, his followers rearranging to flank him and Adam, who followed, walking on nothing rather than flying. 'Planets? We have, yes. Memorials. Museums. Origin world-sentimental. False value. Mobility. See? Fabricated worlds, moons, habitats. Shells and rings around stars, galaxies. Movable. Fixed holdings? Pointless. Vyzhaldi lack needs.'

'Are you taking me to such an artificial world, then?' Adam asked. 'Those things you mentioned before-will you reveal them to me?' Why? Why welcome and teach an outsider, a murderer at that?

'Shield of Scars? Vyzhaldi bodies, ever-hardening. Fist breaks through you, then on you. Huge jump, yes?' A rapid clicking of mandibles, maybe analogous to chuckling. 'After healing, renewed. Better. You saw.'

'Yes,' Adam said, looking for any signs of reproach, from anyone other than his rapidly-returning conscience. 'And Schools...? If you don't mind.'

'Schools, yes. Not, ah, knowledge-buildings. Have some, but are not. Not schools, Schools. Yes? Builders, Balancers, Breakers...'

***

SUCH CRUELTY, OUR SON. SUCH DISDAIN. HARMED AND HUMBLED IN FRONT OF YOUR SIBLINGS IN CHRIST, AND EVERYONE ELSE TOO.

WHO IS HE? NOT EVEN A PATRIARCH. WHERE DOES THIS HAUGHTINESS COME FROM? THIS DISDAIN?

THIS, YOU HAVE ASKED YOURSELF MANY TIMES. WHY WOULD WE ALLOW THIS? WHY STILL GIVE HIM POWER?

YOU HAVE ASKED YOURSELF THIS, AS WELL.

BUT PONDER...

***

Unnamed planet, JADES-GS-z13-O

The Shaper disliked making decisions based on anything other than practicality. It even disliked impractical decisions made by others, especially when it had to follow them.

The Shaper had expected a stronghold of border garrison of one of the polities it had invited to discuss. The Greater Powers, they called themselves now, to differentiate from the lesser power across the universe.

Human science could only observe less than a fourteenth of the universe, and map even less. This galaxy, a thousandth as massive as theirs, was the farthest object they had ever observed. But beyond the edge of the observable universe, aliens carved out their realms, moving between the Greater Power like minnows around sharks.

Hence the meeting taking place here. A place on the edge of Terra's sphere of knowledge without being entirely outside it or inside a Power's territory. A bridge, between known and unknown.

It was all so disgustingly symbolic, the Shaper expected one of the delegates to stop the meeting at one point in order to put on their robe and wizard hat.

The Unscarred's arrival had been instantaneous, its teleportation-quantum disassembly, followed by travel through yocto-wormholes and reassembly-unhindered by time or distance. Every location and moment recorded by the Collective was open to it, for wormholes connected points in both space and time.

Time travel was available to most polities with access to wormholes, but discouraged, almost taboo. Few beings could foresee the consequences of time travel, even without taking into account the aberrants who somehow felt entitled to time. Those who could, like the Collective, rarely used it.

And yet...

The Shaper turned the Unscarred's head to the side, making it nod at Gerald Reyes as he came to a halt on the dusty soil of the conference planet. The aberrant was not breathing heavily, or at all. There was as much air on this planet as he needed. Or, in other words, none.

'You can speak,' Gerald said, taking off his glasses to clean them with a cloth. The glass wasn't even frosted over from the vacuum.

The Shaper nodded again. 'One of your laws.' Not indulging it, then. Informing. Still, Reyes' ability was disturbing. All aberrants imposed their own rules on existence, by nature of what they were, but his power was more direct and obvious than most.

'Yes. Just wanted to make sure we can all communicate, even if our friends don't need air.'

Friends? Really? 'Why take the long way around? Why not make a portal or teleport?'

Gerald dusted off his suit sleeves, putting his glasses back on. 'Wanted to push myself a little. At my normal speed, travelling here would've taken nearly four days.'

'You arrived in one point four seconds.'

'Aye. Over two hundred thousand times faster, but crossing the Milky Way in a heartbeat doesn't cut it over such-' Gerald waved aside the dust raised by the newcomer's arrival. 'Distances. Hello, Engine.'

'Hello, Cambridge,' the Argument Engine cooed in a saccharine voice. 'Just one skip 'n' hop away, eh mate? Showing off for no one?'

'You flew here too,' Gerald pointed out, not bothering to ask the Engine to be respectful. No one had ever managed.

'Well,  duh. You think the reptos' exes don't have their eyestalks peeled for our fannies? Something with no obvious means of propulsion moving at a quintillion times lightspeed ought to make them sit up and notice. I even took the time to zig-zag around some black holes!'

'None of them have eyestalks,' the Shaper pointed out flatly.

'And I studied at Harvard,' Gerald deadpanned.

'Harvard? Isn't that the big bloke in Rowling's police academy series?'

As the aberrant and anomalous machine (for the Collective's scanners could only pick up its calculating power and durable casing, with no power source or unusual energy) continued bickering, the Shaper directed its yoctomachines to build.

***

It was common in nature for large organisms to ignore or even not notice smaller ones, simply because they were unable to perceive them. This applied to the supernatural as well.

If one were to travel the multiverse and catalogue its contents long enough, they would realise the average reality was twelve trillion light-years in diameter, containing many galaxies, celestial bodies and clouds of cosmic debris.

The thing that swam through the aether-whale-like in appearance, if the fins and tail had been replaced with bony, ridged tendrils-was an exception to that. It had travelled the multiverse for thousands of eons, and never paid any attention to its contents. They were too small for it to notice. Its beady eyes alone, minuscule in comparison to its grey, bloated body, would have swallowed any reality like a blue whale did with krill. The number necessary to represent its mass was too large for any universe to contain, even as a digital representation whose every digit occupied a Planck volume.

Realities popped against its skin like soap bubbles, destroyed not just in one moment, but every one across their past and future. Histories unmade, so that they had never been.

The Shaper cared even less for its power than it did for the things it swam through.

A yoctomachine was tool, weapon and vehicle in one, a combination of computer, medicine kit, toolkit, arsenal and wormhole generator. It was also, relevantly to the Shaper's current, self-assigned task, part of a tightly-controlled von Neumann swarm. Much like reptilians had been engineered to absorb cosmic background radiation and convert it to mass for regeneration, yoctomachines could convert matter to energy and back, making more of themselves from almost anything.

A yoctomachine floated close to the aether swimmer's body, far too small for it to perceive. Changing its quantum state until it reached the scenario in which it was successful, it began cutting.

There was only a small chance, a vigintillion to one, of it being able to penetrate the creature's unnatural hide. It took that chance, and dragged it from probability into reality.

The yoctomachine dug in, converting a minute amount of the creature's mass into half a dozen identical copies. Each made five more. Twenty-five more. A hundred twenty-five...

In the three seconds it took Gerald Reyes to rub his eyes and tell the Engine to knock it off with the horseplay, a myriad universes away, the aether swimmer had been converted into yoctomachines.

***

The second step of the Shaper's plan was not nefarious, for the plan itself was not. It was merely thorough. It was sure everyone would understand, or be brought around eventually.

The Reptilian Collective was a post-scarcity society. Its members had no biological needs, and their mastery of science meant they could simply convert things into what they needed. This did not mean, however, that they kicked interesting resources aside.

The Shaper did not intend to take a Graham's number's worth of yoctomachines back to the Collective's realm. Not that the space couldn't have contained them-that would have been trivial-,but it would have been redundant. They needed that quantity in elsewhere, too.

One yoctomachine in each reality meant nothing. The multiverse was infinitely bigger than that. But that was just the beginning. Quantum entanglement with a reality let the Collective keep track and record everything that happened within a reality, as soon as it happened.

The Shaper-the reptilians as a whole-were deeply familar with guilt. As clinical, detached and alien, in the metaphorical sense of the word, they might have seemed to overworlders, it had been guilt that had turned them from warmongers to protectors.

Until their first and last war against peers had brought their homeworld to ruin, the reptilians had seen science as just another tool to be exploited, or a way to make them. Another cog in the warmachine.

But for what? It was the grey goo problem. All civilisations wanted to see themselves spread, either removing, absorbing or converting everything different, until they were all that remained. But an universe-spanning echo chamber would bring nothing but stagnation.

Worse, some reptilians whispered among themselves, it would be  boring. Nothing new to study, to challenge, to oppose. Why would one live?

Yet, sometimes, the Shaper contemplated whether they should have done more for Earth. It knew they  could have, that went without question, but then came the matter of smothering others in the cradle, even by accident.

Were it inclined towards cowardice, the Shaper would have told itself the pact made with the aberrants worshipped by most overworlders as gods, and the duties entailed, meant they had done everything they could without either exhausting themselves or being forced offworld, or destroyed in a war due to being perceived as overreaching.

The Shaper, however, did not think of the invaders and anomalies removed from reality and history, nor the disasters prevented. Neither it nor its components had ever been the type to rest on laurels rather than brood over failures and missed chances.

Many times, it had wished to simply go to the surface and share its science with humanity, so they would stop persecuting, enslaving and murdering each other, like the reptilians had in their prehistory.

(There were, of course, simulated scenarios where mankind simply resumed such activities with greater weaponry at its fingertips, unless throttled by either the Collective, their gods, or both. But the Shaper did not want to countenance such dismal probabilities, the same way it did not want to stifle humanity's potential. It had, in its own way, hope for mankind. The little mammals had grown on it, like mould on an ancient tree, despite everything.. They were doing their best, praise their warm little hearts.)

In the time it took the Shaper to mull over this, and open a wormhole to another reality for each newly-acquired yoctomachine, light would have only crossed a Planck length.

Ah, the beauty of science...now, for the third step.

***

The aether swimmer did not know this was the second time it was broken down for resources by the Reptilian Collective. It did not know that, since wormholes led everywhere and everywhen, the Collective could and would repeat this as many times as possible.

This time, however, the Shaper wanted more than raw matter.

It was something of a running joke among reptilians that the fastest beings in their universe moved at 1 U (niverse, or a dozen trillion light-years)/P(lanck length). It was less clunky than saying "seven vigintillion c" every time, and the Collective valued brevity. There were not many beings who always operated at that speed-Ischyros, Solarex and the Watcher at their baseline, the Heaven-Spurning Elder, the pantheons' leaders, the Cardinal Archangels and Princes of Hell, Ying Lung, Mother Wound-and a handful who could increase their speed to that level.

All of them would have been impressed at the swimmer's speed, for it crossed many times its body length every moment. Much like its weight, no universe could have contained the number needed to represent its velocity.

Through quantum entanglement, every member of the Collective could move that fast.

As such, after turning the swimmer's mass to energy to be stored and harvested with a conversion beam, the yoctomachine passed through a wormhole once more, leaving.

And the Collective's machines reached into another slice of time, entangling all they touched to the swimmer's speed. One never knew when it would be needed.

***

There were eighteen tredecillion Planck times in a second. Seven novemdecillion in the average universe's lifespan. Some would have argued placing a yoctomachine in every such moment to be overkill, paranoid. The Shaper would have said it was lax.

Converting the matter in an universe's twilight eons to energy was only practical. The yoctomachines inserted in moments from the Big Bag to the present would stand guard, watching for paradoxes, dangerous incursions and useful resources, but the rest would harvest the energy, or use it to make more of themselves.

Other things could be made, of course. Materials. Weapons, on a whim. Starships, if the Shaper got nostalgic or wanted to trick the old enemies into thinking the reptilians had never advanced beyond the bulky, shipbound wormhole generators of eons past.

Copies of the Unscarred, for its blueprints were readily available. The Shaper had gotten rather attached to the albino, in multiple senses of the word. Making more of it without the lightspeed limit for physical speed?

Or Warscale suits. Matter of fact...

***

Gerald and the Engine turned-purely theathrical, in the latter's case-at the new wormhole's appearance. Though neither would have said it, the hole's infinitely-sharp edges set them on...

'I know what you're thinking,' the Engine told Gerald. 'I'm not going to make that joke. I have dignity.'

'Learned from watching people?'

'What in Asimov's bollocks..of course not! How could I learn dignity from you lot? I swear...' Its spherical chassis shook slightly. 'I'm this close to arguing that conspiracy theory about space worms in existence.'

'Please don't,' the Shaper said. 'It is nonsensical, and makes us wish to change the name to anything else.'

'Watch 'em call 'em ratholes or some crap,' the Engine sniggered. Then, raising its voice, it spoke to the, 'Come out! It can't be harder than being in the closet about breaking physics!'

'Aberrant Reyes,' he Shaper began, drawing the mage's attention. 'The Global Gathering insisted you come because they wanted someone to represent their interests.'

'Actually, the diplomats are yet to arrive. I'm security. Please don't dismiss them to their faces.'

'We shall hone our skills as liars, then." The Shaper promised. 'But it? Security, too?'

Actually, Gerald thought, Engie is here to act like a jackass so we appear reasonable by comparison. "Indeed."

***

Your philosophers thought of light, unmanifest and indescribable, except for one saying what it was not. That...is one way to look at it. But think of it like this, if you would care for the thoughts of one one close to the godhead. Where does one lay to sleep? In a bed. Perhaps there is a bed, in a house, in a city, in a world full of creators. Moving, unmoved, but awake. Fully realised.

You saw the laughing thing from outside this Dream. Wherever could it come from? Whoever could prevent things like it, and the waking makers, from disturbing and tormenting the sleepers in their slumber?

Perhaps there is one such, so to speak, being.

Perhaps not.