I had made a fatal mistake, trusted someone that I should not have. Thanks to her tool, Gattaca was older and smarter than me. The pocket watch had given her vast amounts of time to learn how to deceive people. She had gamed me into this deadly, inescapable scenario with far too much ease.

My flesh was decaying away as my body was being rapidly subsumed by the Necromage superweapon. Black fungus was blossoming from my skin, boils bursting open and releasing more deadly spores.

But, I was not done yet - I still had my spirit, my soul. I was a dying spark in the void of awful darkness that threatened to drown and unmake me.

I poured my hatred for Gattaca into myself, turning my focus into a furnace of righteous, burning, fervent fury.

Gattaca and Eunice had done a truly abominable thing, extinguished the brightest and best of Illatius, brought humanity to its knees. They bound Illatius in chains, made sure that my little, beautiful Sunshine Archipelago was inevitably careening towards annihilation.

If I failed here, if I perished in this doomed future, every single one of my friends would die, everything beautiful would be trampled underfoot and all life on this world would be extinguished.

I could not permit this.

Rage. Animosity and manic furor boiled within me.

As Juneberry spoke to Gattaca, asking her questions, I dove deep into my soul. I shoved all of my remaining points into Intelligence, accelerated our shared mental space and restructured myself into a… weapon.

I knew that my fleshy body was doomed, knew that sacrifices had to be made for me to survive.

I wielded Endy like a surgeon, carving everything unnecessary away. Everything holding me to my body, everything slowing me down went under the knife as I remade, reforged, optimized myself.

Juni and Junezia became one, a concept of destruction, a manifestation of pure vengeance.

There was nothing pleasant, nothing amicable left in me now. I had offered Gattaca my aid and friendship and she used it against me.

If I failed, perished here, the next reset would tear my soul asunder and the chain linking the future to the past would shatter.

As my eyes closed and my fingers clawed at the ashes-covered ground, I crystallized, paused my entire body, stilled my organs, suspended my blood.

Juneberry had not been running aimlessly through the ruins of Undertown. No, she was purposefully searching for a spot for us that was least populated with Astral Phantoms.

The ruins of Undertown were absolutely crawling with the accursed things.

Hundreds of enormous, glowing abominations with hollow hexagonal shells floated through the desolate, trash and bone filled landscape.

I could not stay, could not simply hide within my dead body.

It didn’t matter if Gattaca had stolen Endy from me. The concept of infinity was fused to the core of my soul, tied to numerous skills and functions.

I wasn’t human anymore, wasn’t led by compassion or companionship.

I was me… what I had always been, a monster, an Astral Phantom, a self-reinforced concept, a persistent, dangerous idea that survived no matter what environment it was submerged in, drowned, cast into.

Every single one of my soul-threads coiled like a spring waiting for a gap in the spiraling flock of phantoms.

Juneberry let go of our body, fused herself to us, became our Astral-sonar and tracking system.

My mind accelerated, calculated, waited, readied itself.

It was time.

I unleashed myself, leapt out of my dead shell, soaring forward, through the Astral Ocean of Undertown, towards my final destination... towards my prey.

I was wrathful revenge. I was retribution. I was death itself.

Thousands of other phantoms filling the ruins of Undertown rushed towards me as soon as they spotted me.

I wondered what it was that made me different from them. Why didn't they just feed on each other? Perhaps my unique spark made me distinct, appealing. Perhaps the hollow-mesh phantoms gathered here were of a single family and had some connection to each other, had been unleashed, created by the Necromage invaders? Perhaps they were the end result of the Novazem plague converting the deaths of millions into spectral wraiths.

I had no time to contemplate such matters.

Never in my life had I been so badly cornered, so outmatched, so menaced by the flock of revenants converging upon me.

Absolute desperation itself had fueled my creativity, my unconditional desire for survival.

I was different from the archmages that perished in this place. I was an Astral Phantom. I had been practicing killing smaller versions of these creatures in Undertown.

Endy manifested in my threads.

Not just one Endy.

Endies. I had torn all of my skills apart, turned every single instance of infinity in me into a separate blade.

Each of my thick, springy threads unfurled, wielding shards of infinity.

I carved through the bodies and limbs of enemy phantoms that tried to grab me, spun like a corkscrew, stabbed left and right, up and down, burning through my magic, sacrificing everything to survive, my mental processing accelerated to its maximum.

The phantoms struck back at me with their ghostly claws and tentacles.

Silver blood blossomed through the darkness of the void. Mine and theirs. I was alone, I was surrounded, but I was covered in concept-killing blades like a porcupine and Juneberry-sonar was quick at identifying each of my adversaries.

A mere moment, a few seconds of time had stretched themselves into an hours of utter mayhem, motion and devastation.

A System message congratulated me on having enough XP for level 8. I ignored it. I had only one goal, one purpose for which I strived, one destination in mind.

I was heading for the spark of life, towards the girl who had killed me.

Gattaca was right to fear the phantoms.

She also made a fatal mistake. To get me to trust her, to deceive my deductive examination of her, she was extremely honest. Eunice's apprentice revealed to me that she failed to build a personal shield, failed to become a Still-Walker.

By the providence of Sempiternity, sacrifice, and my demented creativity, the power of surprise was on my side. As an Astral Phantom I was not limited by vertical dimensions, wasn't barred by gravity, could cross the tens of meters separating us in no time at all.

Gattaca had a perfectly circular shield pulsing around her. While Juneberry spoke to her, I had memorized, studied, understood it perfectly as a single concept.

It wasn’t a personal shield she made herself. It was a singular, magical resonance projected by a small, hexagrammic crystal lantern hanging from her neck, a basic barrier and repellent against phantoms.

Pathetic.

My razor blades made of infinity converged into one, struck against the bubble of her hex shield.

It popped out of existence.

Gattaca was far too slow to react. She was limited, bound by her physical body.

By the time she noticed that something was wrong I was already inside her, already tearing into her soul and carving her up from within.

A legion of Astral Phantoms followed me, rushing towards the exposed girl with the pocket watch.

Gattaca screamed, clawing at her flesh.

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She leapt forward in time, appearing atop another stone that fell from Nemendias long ago.

The other phantoms were left far behind, but I was buried deep inside her, my infinitely-sharp claws digging deep into her core.

I saw her defenseless soul, felt her panic, rejoiced in her terror.

She was really just a monwai with an absurdly powerful artifact, not a high-cendai. She had never learned to defeat Astral Phantoms, never defined her core properly.

It made sense in a way - Eunice likely did not teach, nor permit Gattaca to define her core. If Gattaca could truly understand herself, learn to define her own soul, then she could simply rewind Eunice’s choker away using the power of her pocket watch.

Because Gattaca had never defined her core, had never peered inward into herself, she also could not spot or rewind me out of the well of her soul.

Gattaca leapt through time. She screamed, flailed and thrashed. She shot backwards and forwards across millennia, flashed forward all over Undertown, but as hard as she tried, she could not rid herself of me.

I ignored her useless flailing, devouring, deconstructing, ending what she was. I felt no pity, no remorse for what I was doing. Gattaca rejoiced in bringing archmages of Illatius to this future hell, found delight in their last, desperate moments of life.

The enemy phantoms had taken many bites out of me, sucked out much of my essence during my flight to Gattaca. I was bleeding all over, decaying away, starving for mana, felt an icy chill taking its hold on me.

Gattaca's soul had become my meal, my way of sustaining my expiring existence.

Using the infinite blades like cleavers I butchered her from within, devouring everything that she was, absorbing the spilling essence into myself… until Eunice's monwai was no more.

. . .

Gattaca's body was lying down on a large, cracked stone, a remnant of Nemendias.

The crystal hex lantern on her neck had once again formed a shield against phantoms. It did nothing at all to repel me from within her flesh. Perhaps Barrie would be able to claw me out of Gattaca if he was focused on it properly, but Barrie wasn’t anywhere near here.

Her body belonged to me now.

I blinked, refocusing my new eyes, wiped Gattaca's tears and came up on my knees. My new body hurt all over, felt wrong, sat around me like an ill-fitting diving suit. I was incredibly difficult to move and I felt a hunger like no other... an icy, gnawing hunger, an insatiable desire to devour more souls.

I felt, knew that if I stayed in this ill-fitting body for too long, eventually I would succumb to my desires, become a monster that devoured all. I knew exactly what phantoms felt like after their first meal and I hated myself, hated the sensation of the chilling void pulling at me from all sides.

The bone-white, hole-covered mask on my face was bothersome to see through, so I pulled it off my head and threw it aside.

My new, glove-covered fingers grabbed at Gattaca's belt reaching for the pocket watch.

I had no idea how to use it.

Unfortunately, Astral Phantoms did not inherit the full memories of the people they consumed. In my bid for survival, I had fully unmade Gattaca's soul and now inhabited an empty, mindless shell.

Unlike Gattaca, I did not spend seven years memorizing and defining Nemendias. Unlike her, I had no magical anchor to use to leap through time. It was a problem.

I suddenly felt that breathing was an issue. The Necromage plague was trying to kill me... again.

I gritted my teeth and I defined Gattaca's entire body using my Still-Walker sight. It didn't take very long to do. I focused all of my will on the pocket watch on my belt, grabbed at it with my hand wishing to rewind myself.

The smaller, seconds arrow clicked backwards once, then again and again.

Breathing became easier. The watch responded!

I was winding the infection away! I was invincible! Woo!

Wait, no… I could not keep this going forever. If I stayed here, kept rewinding Gattaca, eventually this body would become too young for me to wield properly. The watch wasn't rewinding my soul for some reason... wasn't able to make the hunger for life go away.

I frowned and considered my options. I defined the rock beneath me. It was an old, dusty remnant, a shard of Nemendias.

It was badly damaged. I had no idea what it looked like before the explosion devastated it. The pocket watch did not think, did not speak to me, but I somehow knew that I could not use Nemendias like Gattaca to leap backwards in time.

Annoying.

I stepped off the rock and began walking through Undertown. Everything here was useless, badly decayed and damaged. In her flailing, Gattaca leapt thousands of years into the future. I lacked a proper anchor that could send me backwards in time.

I bit my lip, contemplating what to do next.

Wait… the gate! The immovable Shogun gate did not change, did not decay, did not break down over centuries. The gate remained exactly the same as it always did - the Eurekan construct was impervious to time itself!

Perfect.

. . .

It took me quite a while to find the damned gate.

When I finally reached it, I circled and defined it fully as a concept, as an anchor for myself to use.

I put my hand on it, wishing to use it to leap backwards in time.

The watch on my belt clicked. The seconds arrow spun backwards madly, then the hours one joined in.

Days and nights flashed like strobe lights as the glowing clouds rushed backwards and dimmed and lit over and over and over. The stroboscopic effect turned into a gray, blurry, freaky, dream-like vision.

Week, months, years, centuries flew by, rewinding away.

The world around me blurred further, became indistinct. The Eurekan gate remained the same, but Undertown around me flickered, broken buildings repairing themselves, the view looking like a VHS tape that was being rewound backwards.

I knew exactly when I needed to be.

I stopped. The rewind paused. An old woman dressed in rags screamed when she saw me appear out of nowhere in front of her.

Grimy Undertown citizens retreated away from the gate in terror.

I ignored them, turned to the black, hexagon-textured wall and placed the knife into the glowing panel that opened up for me.

The circle of lights spun around the gate and Infinity’s hologram manifested into existence in front of me.

A shield made of grayscale hexagons formed around the gate, blocking Undertown from us.

"Hey Infi," I said, not recognizing my own voice. "Long time no see."

The avatar of Infinity stared at me. Then, her eyebrows went up and she started to laugh.

I squinted at Infi with Gattaca’s stolen eyes.

“What?” I asked.

“This is new,” Infi said. “I appreciate… new, unexpected twists.”

“Did you guide me so that I would step into the Dead Zone on purpose last time we met?” I asked the hologram with Gattaca’s voice.

“I did,” she nodded.

“Why?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you,” she smiled. “Knowing too much would get you nullified by... you know who."

I sighed.

“How omniscient are these omnies exactly?” I asked.

“Not very,” Infi smirked with an ignoble look. “I’ve been keeping them… preoccupied with unsolvable problems and emissaries I’ve made."

“Problems like what?”

“Like the Dead Zone,” Infi said. “I’ve been spreading the Dead Zone into all sorts of naughty places, creating paradoxes and errors. Metaphorically, it's sort of like making god microwave a burrito so hot that she herself could not eat it."

“Emissaries?”

“Users of infinity,” Infi explained. “Clever little girls and boys like you who refuse to be bound in chains and limits.”

“When I stepped into the Dead Zone, what did I turn into?” I asked.

“You became part of an incredibly stubborn, annoying, deranged, zany... Wizard," Infi said. "Someone who can change everything... make a single different decision, someday when the universe runs out of time."

"I see," I said. "Well, at least I'm... human, right?"

The holographic avatar didn't comment on my words.

“What happens if I use this body I stole to change the future? Tell Juni not to trust Gattaca?” I asked. "Why does the watch not permit Gattaca to meet herself?"

“Meeting yourself like that creates a temporal paradox,” Infi exhaled. “Having two of yourself in one place will cause Zero to manifest and erase the extra copy of whoever is present out of time.”

“Zero is... time, yes?” I asked.

“Yes. She’s the Temporal Protector, a corrector of paradoxes,” Infi clarified.

“How can I trick Zero, give myself information from the future?" I shot another question at Infi. "Should I avoid meeting myself and tell the information to one of my friends?"

"No. I suggest you meet yourself and Gattaca, right now." Infi smiled. "When you see both, abandon this body and merge into yourself. Zero will show up and slap the law-breakers. She's... lawful good."

"She will erase this Gattaca, right? Does Zero know about the pocket watch? Does she permit its existence... since you know it breaks time and causes paradoxes?"

"Yes. Zero will be exceptionally angry about this fragment," Infi pointed at the pocket watch. "It will be to your benefit if Gattaca meets herself, trust me."

“Open a Gate to Nemendias, the office of the Keeper of Keys!” I barked an order to Infi. "Make it as close as possible to me!"

"Your order is my command, Master," Infi smiled, her purple eyes glinting with a malicious look.

A gateway formed in the black frame at the exact moment I took a step forward.

My extended hand grabbed Juni's bare neck.

"...going to be okay,” Juni said, offering her hand to Gattaca “You can work w… what the frig?! What?!"

She stared at me, her eyes wide.

"Gattaca is a murderer!" I barked as I threw a punch at past Gattaca and rushed out of the future Gattaca's body into myself.

Gattaca stared at herself, her mouth open wide in horror. She knew that something had gone horribly wrong. I felt it too. The pocket watch REALLY did not want to meet itself.

Future Gattaca's fist connected with past Gattaca's face.

In the moment when the two distinctive souls of me fused together into one with a frighteningly unnerving snap, time stopped.

A black, dot appeared in front of us woven from darkness. It exploded outwards like a blooming fractal flower made from liquid metal, blossomed into a figure of an angel woven from black, reflective steel.

The angel had no face. A mirror-mask helmet stared at the scene of Gattaca punching herself as her metal wings folded away.

"I see someone's been screwing with time," a very cold, tired, female voice spoke.

I could not speak, could not move, could not draw my eyes from the red, pulsating, glowing heart on the angel's chest that slowly folded into itself with fractal waves of mechanical, eternally moving minute gears.

Zero raised a hand at the future Gattaca.

"Nullify," she spoke without aplomb.

A brilliant red ray burst forth from Zero's hand and devoured the body of future Gattaca with a flash. The pocket watch on future Gattaca's belt persisted only a moment longer, but it too became consumed, succumbed to the red flames of Zero's nullifier.

"How have you done this, child?" Zero turned to the remaining Gattaca.

"Ah," she noticed the brass watch on her belt.

"A partial copy of me? How… bothersome," Zero picked up the watch and stared at it. "Made by Rozaline? Hrmm. This won't do."

"Null-e-fy," Zero said and the second pocket watch ignited in her hand with red fractal flames. The time-bending artifact shattered into purple fragments that burned and melting away into nothing.

Then Zero turned to me.

She stared at me for a moment and then sighed.

"I'm not untangling this mess. If I catch you breaking time again," she said. "I will erase you out of existence. Got it? Good. Don't screw with time again."

With a blink Zero was gone.

Time resumed its flow. Gattaca's white mask flew off as the kinetic force of the punch of the now non-existent future Gattaca threw her to the floor.

I bared my chimera chompers at her.

"No…. No, no, no, No!" Gattaca wailed, grabbing at the empty space where her pocket watch once sat.

Her silver-blue eyes filled with tears of horror and despair. In an instant, without expecting it, she had lost her ultimate trump card and tool.

As she thrashed and wept on the floor, I grabbed the bone wand from her belt and snapped it in half. Then I pulled her hex lantern off her neck and angrily crushed it underfoot.

Gattaca did not resist, too shocked by the loss of her divine artifact.

I turned back to the avatar of Nemendias with a tired, albeit satisfied look.

"There," I said. "Your ghost is no more. Do whatever you want with this petulant girl. My job's done!"