The multiverse as a whole is a thing of intricate and awe-inspiring beauty. Born of a single quiver in one quantum field, the inflaton field expanded. From infinitesimal, it has expanded to… well… it might not be infinite, but it is the closest thing anything can be to that term…
…it is well… everything…
…and it continues to expand at a truly incomprehensible rate.
Across its entire ever-increasing expanse, ten to the stupid parts of it suddenly stop expanding every ten to the stupidth of a second and form pockets, the energy from the inflaton field being converted into matter (such as it exists in that particular pocket of spacetime).
If that pocket’s physical constants are such that matter (as we know it) and life (as we know it) can exist and that life (as we know it) gains sapience (as we know it)…
…It will view that truly minuscule portion of the greater multiverse as its entire universe.
No matter how much of the greater inflaton field collapses at once, there is always just a bit that is still expanding, still inflating at such an incredible rate that it will almost instantly be even bigger than all of the “universes” that it spawns… or ever spawned for that matter.
And so it goes, each of the ten to the truly stupidth power universes forming, aging, and slipping into the strange undeath of deep time one after the other forever.
What is truly incredible to think about is that all of this started from just one infinitesimal quiver in one quantum field and unfolded in a divinely complex, eternally expanding everything, each part of it separate but part of an impossibly complex greater whole which, if one was actually a truly omniscient divine being, perhaps the one who put all of this in motion, could not only observe but actually predict every universe to ever exist, each pre-ordained with clockwork precision from that initial divinely inspired…
THUMP… CRASH…
What the FUCK was that?!?
Is everyone okay? Jesus… That was a BIG one!
Oh, what was that?
Well…
You know that whole “pre-ordained” business?
That was before jackasses started screwing with everything, and it seems that one just did…
…or, more precisely, will. That came from the future
Oh, yeah. That can happen. If someone screws up badly enough, it can disrupt causality both forwards and backwards in time. The boss is NOT going to be happy about this one. I can tell you that.
What? You don’t understand how things can propagate backwards in time? That’s right. You’re new, aren’t you?
Let’s see… I think I have a severed head around here somewhere…
***
In a place that doesn’t truly exist in the way we think of things existing, there is a divine masterpiece, an observatory of all that is, was, and ever will be…
…more precisely, there was one just a moment ago.
Now, it was in ruins. Shattered crystal intermingled with strange elements from countless realities. Glowing aether hissed and bubbled as it mingled with dark, chaotic ichor on the shattered floor, ceiling, and walls of what was once a richly furnished and decorated temple of precision that would bring any metrologist capable of comprehending it to tears of joy and madness.
In the middle of the disaster lay a tangled mass of wheels, feathers, and eyes, all glaring balefully in every direction that could ever exist.
To say it was displeased was a bit of an understatement.
The doors to the chamber flew open as robed attendants rushed in.
“Watcher!” one cried. “What happened?”
“A THUMP,” the angel replied, “A RATHER LARGE ONE. THE DIVINE CLOCKWORK HAS BEEN PROFANED…AGAIN… I’M SOMEWHAT ANNOYED ABOUT THAT… AGAIN.”
The mind-shattering combination of divine glory and things that should NOT be dislodged itself from the wreckage and started grooming itself, smoothing its feathers and straightening its bent wheels.
“THIS IS GOING TO BE A BOTHER.”
It produced a series of crystals, gears, and spheres from somewhere and examined it closely, the device seeming to appear and disappear around a central point as it intersected the 3D+1 spacetime that the attendants could perceive.
“FORTUNATELY,” the angelic entity said, “THE CAUSE HAS NOT YET TRANSPIRED. WE CAN SEVER THE OFFENDING REALITY FROM THE GREATER WHOLE BEFORE THE SLEEPING ONES ARE DISTURBED. LEAVE ME. I MUST LOCATE THE SOURCE OF THIS DEBACLE.”
The attendants all bowed and quickly (and gratefully) departed.
While they adored the entity and were not only proud but believed themselves truly blessed to have the privilege to serve…
…it was really hard to look at.
***
A short but inherently undefinable time later, the angel, now fully undisheveled, floated down a long corridor of tightly bound doors.
It reached a locked and sealed chamber, completely unmarked save for a cryptic placard bearing only the word, “SanZ7”.
It paused a moment to steel itself.
AND BEINGS THINK I’M DISTURBING… it thought to itself before unsealing and opening the thick eternal iron and divine lead vault door sealing the chambers beyond.
***
Inside its sanctum, a being whose original form and name were lost to time, madness, and chaos floated peacefully in a completely bare, unadorned stone chamber.
The angel floated into the room and made a polite “wooshing” noise with its countless wings.
The being shifted, its thick grey robe and obsidian facemask thankfully concealing exactly what shifted and exactly how, where, and when it did so as it turned to greet its visitor.
“Watcher,” it said in a polite and utterly disinterested voice.
“HERALD,” the angel replied, its eyes and wheels “nodding” pleasantly, “THERE HAS BEEN A THUMP, A MIGHTY ONE, ONE THAT SENDS ECHOES ACROSS MANY UNIVERSES, ECHOES LOUD ENOUGH TO DISTURB THE DREAMING ONES.”
“Interesting,” the Herald of the End of Days replied. “How fares your orrery?”
“HOW DO YOU THINK?” the angel chuckled.
“I take it that my services are required?”
“YES. I HAVE LOCATED THE SOURCE OF THE CHAOS… MORE OR LESS.”
“More or less?” the Herald replied, a trace of amusement leaking into his otherwise emotionless speech.
“MY ORRERY HAS BEEN TRASHED, OKAY?” the angel grumbled. “CONSIDERING WHAT I HAD TO WORK WITH AND THE TIME THAT I HAD WITH WHICH TO COMPLETE SAID LABOR, I DID PRETTY GODDAMNED WELL, IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF.”
There was a brief flicker of obscene light from behind the obsidian mask as the mouth (or whatever the hell was left of it) it concealed parted in a slight grin.
“Very well,” the Herald said, “Tell me where and when, and I shall excise the corruption before it begins. It would be a shame for your celestial orrery to be irrevocably vandalized. Do we know who is responsible? I shall excise them as well.”
“WE DO… SORT OF… IT GETS RATHER… TANGLED… THE CLOSER I GET TO THE SOURCE. I BELIEVE YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH SOME OF THE NAMES INVOLVED. I KNOW THAT I AM... UNFORTUNATELY.”
The Herald unfolded himself from his meditation pose.
“Tell me.”
***
On a perfect, sunlit beach, a very beautiful woman and a pretty unattractive hominid were sitting on the sand, gazing at a glowing wall of glyphs, symbols, and numbers.
“Okay,” the hominid said, “I totally fucked that one up… However…”
He pointed at another entry.
“That one’s on you.”
“Agreed,” the woman in a white bathing suit replied. “In both cases, the root cause was a fundamental lack of communication. Withholding key information from each other seems to be the origin of eighty-seven point three, nine, two percent of our difficulties.”
She smiled at her companion.
“Billions upon billions of years, and we still didn’t trust each other.”
“Well, no more,” the ape-man said as he wrapped his arm around her. “Either we do this all the way, or we don’t, right?”
“Right,” the woman said as she leaned into him. “I mean, what do we have to be afraid of?”
“You mean you don’t already have a spreadsheet?... And you probably really shouldn’t have said that.”
As the pair laughed, a large crab sneaked toward them.
“Big Guy?” Frostie asked.
“Yes?”
“Why is there a crab stalking you?”
“Hmm?” the hominid asked as he looked over his shoulder, causing the giant crab to hide behind a shell one-fifth its size.
“Huh,” the hominid said, “It seems that it wants to eat me.”
“That’s odd,” Frostie replied as she rose and walked towards the Noltan coconut crab.
The crab decided that it was time to make a sprint for the tree line. Unfortunately, while quite fast for a Noltan coconut crab, it was nowhere near quick enough to outrun even an average human’s walking pace, much less the pair heading its way.
As it fled, it had a thought (quite the accomplishment for the little guy). The whole point of this endeavor was to get a mouthful of a stupid, and they were conveniently heading its way.
“CRAAABBBBB!” it bubbled as it turned and charged, claws raised. It was going to get itself a stupid!
“Whoa there, little buddy,” the hominid chuckled as it reached toward his diminutive attacker…
Crack!
The hominid suddenly flew backward, tumbling end over end as something quite small hit him with a lot more force than it should have.
Hovering just above him was a very small and very annoyed crab.
“Leave my friend alone!” the little crab shouted, causing the sand to rumble and the surf to blow back.
“CRAAAABBBBB!!!” his larger friend yelled (well, sort of gurgled) as it scuttled forward and latched onto The Great Erectus’s big toe.
“Hey!” the hominid protested, “Stop that!”
“NOM, NOM, NOM!”
“Don’t hurt them!” the little crab exclaimed, his infinitely sharp claws spreading menacingly.
“Dude,” the hominid replied, “I’m not the one trying to hurt it.”
The big crab continued to chew desperately on The Great Erectus’s toe, not making much progress.
“I can assure you that we bear your friend no ill will and have absolutely no desire to start any problems with THE CRAB,” Frostie said reassuringly.
“Yeah,” the hominid said, raising his crab-laden foot. “We are all friends here. We don’t want any trouble. I’m trying very hard not to damage your buddy, but could you please get him to let go?”
***
“CRAB,” the large crab muttered unhappily as it squatted on the ground shortly thereafter, its meal rudely refusing to part with even the tiniest morsel.
“…and you’re certain that this world isn’t scheduled for a visit from your friends?” Frostie said as she eyed the hominid suspiciously.
“You don’t honestly believe I would set up in a doomed universe?” The Great Erectus asked indignantly. “I’ve never…”
“Dude,” Frostie said with a faint smirk.
“It was just that one time!” the ape-man huffed. “How was I supposed to know that…”
“That the whole thing would unravel unexpectedly… Like this one is?”
“Hey! This is completely different!” the Big Guy replied. “This universe is solid. The collapse isn’t even going to get out of the local cluster… probably…”
“CRAB?”
“I have no idea,” the little crab shrugged, “It’s probably something stupid.”
“You have no idea,” Frostie chuckled as she turned to the little crab squatting on a shell between her feet.
“Well… It feels solid, anyway,” the hominid said as he poked the sand with his toes appraisingly.
The crab hopped off the shell and nibbled a little sand.
“It tastes okay, too,” the crab added. “It tastes nothing like the universe I feasted upon. Of course, it was only the one. I’m rather new to all of this.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“You are?” Frostie said. “I thought you guys were eternal, like old, old.”
“Some of them are,” the crab replied. “But I’ve only been like this for a few days.”
“Really?” Frostie asked as she knelt next to it.
“It’s been quite an adjustment, getting used to… all this…” the little crab shrugged. “Just the other day, I was a normal crab living a normal crab life. But, then I ate some stupid and wound up like you.”
“You ate some… stupid?” Frostie asked as the ape-man’s face fell, and his eyes widened in shock.
“Yes, I was in the process of getting eaten when a stupid picked me up and put me back together. I pinched it, of course.”
“Naturally,” Frostie nodded.
“And then some stupid stuck to my pincer, and I ate it, as one would.”
“Makes sense.”
“And then I got the stupid in me, and here I am.”
“And when you said you ate some stupid, you are referring to ingesting a portion of someone like my friend and me?”
“Yes!” the crab exclaimed. “I’m not really sure about all that much because, well… I was a crab…”
“CRAB!” his friend added. It just seemed like the right spot to join in.
“But it had to have happened around here somewhere since this is my beach… It couldn’t have been either of you, though. There is no way I could have gotten even a speck of stupid from either of you if my friend couldn’t… Oh, I did eat some of you, but only after I ate some of the first stupid.”
“You did?” Frostie asked.
“Yes. I learn a lot about what I eat, and once I started trying to figure out how to be a stupid, I…”
He looked over at his friend.
“Was that what you were trying to do? Become a stupid?”
“CRAB.”
“Why?!?”
“CRAB.”
“But why would you ever want to be like me? You’re perfect in your crabness. Why would you ever want to get stupid?”
“CRAB…CRAB…. CR…CRaB?”
“But why do you want to be more like me? It makes little sense.”
“CRAB… CRAB…”
It looked downward.
“MATE.”
“You’re a female ?!?”
“CRAB!” the large crab exclaimed as it angrily turned its back on the little crab and crossed its claws.
“Smooth,” the ape-man snorted.
“No! I didn’t mean it like that!” the little crab exclaimed as it scuttled around to face his much larger friend, who just turned her back on him again.
“It’s just that…”
“At least it’s not just us, huh?” The Great Erectus snorted as he nudged Frostie with his shoulder.
“Yep, definitely contaminated with stupid,” Frostie smiled as the little crab frantically bubbled and waved its claws about.
“…CRAB?” the larger crab said shyly as she hesitantly turned to look at her jerk of a friend.
“I honestly didn’t know!” the little crab squeaked urgently. “We’re completely different species, and the moon is nowhere near where it needs to be for me to even start to think that way!”
“CRAB?” she said, looking at him earnestly.
“Well… I hadn’t really thought about it before… but… I really like you and want to be around you more than any other crab I’ve ever met. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be possible… before… but now I’m not really a crab at all… I mean…”
It scratched at the sand nervously.
“If it was possible, there isn’t any other crab I would want to mate with more than I would want to mate with you.”
“MATE!” she bellowed happily and scurried over…
…directly above the much smaller crab.
“Wait!” the little crab exclaimed as she happily plopped down on top of him with a very audible “thud”.
A few moments later, she bubble-squealed as he lifted her about an inch off the sand.
“MATE!”
“You’re right,” a muffled voice said from beneath her. “This is really nice… Perhaps not the most practical arrangement, though.”
“CRAB.”
“When does the moon tell you to mate?”
“MATE…” she mused.
“CRAB,” she shrugged a few seconds later. (She didn’t know either. It’s not something that crabs really think about all that much.)
“So, why don’t we just hang out like we always do, and when the moon tells you it’s time, we try to figure all of this out then?”
“CRAB.” she crabbed happily.
“Then it’s settled,” the little crab said as he crawled out from underneath her. “We’ll figure it out when the moon says to.”
“CRAB,” she giggled as she picked him up and put him on her back.
“Well…” he mused, “This is… not how it usually goes… but none of this is how it usually goes, so… why not!”
“CRAB!!!” she crabbed happily as she wore her new boyfriend as a divine jaunty little hat.
“Congratulations, you two!” the ape-man said happily. “Hope you’re better at this than we are.”
“Shut up,” Frostie smirked.
“…crab…” the big crab sighed a little while later.
“Well, if you really want to be more like me…” her new fiancé bubbled.
He reached back and ripped off one of his smaller legs.
“CRAB!”
“Oh, it’s fine,” he said as he handed it down. “Getting put back together was the first thing that happened to me when I became a stupid. I’ll just grow it back later.”
“CRAB!” she said with a little shrug as she took his leg and munched it down.
She spasmed.
“CRaaaAAaAaaaBbbBdgggjjjhhh!”
She sagged, silent and motionless, to the ground.
***
“Thanks for giving me a hand with her,” the little crab said as he, Frostie, and The Great Erectus stood near his bride-to-be’s burrow.
“Not a problem,” Frostie smiled. “I hope she knew what she was asking for,” she added, “apotheosis is quite the shock… as well you know.”
“I tried to warn her,” he shrugged, “But I also know what truly wanting to know something is like when you’ve never wanted to know anything before. My friend was already contaminated with the stupid, somehow. At this point, there was nothing else to do but to see it through…”
He looked back as his missing leg rematerialized.
“At least she got the crab version and not… whatever it was that I got… and what I later learned from eating bits of you two.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” the hominid replied. “Faun is still kind of new to all of this as well. I’ll have a talk with her about holding herself in a bit more. Inflicting entityhood on someone out of the blue like that wasn’t cool.”
“I was about to become food, so I can only thank her,” the crab shrugged. “Besides, I kind of like being like this now that I am starting to learn how to balance what is crab with what is stupid.”
“I like your way of thinking,” the hominid smiled, “Well, since Faun stuck you with this whole mess and I didn’t catch it quick enough to clean you off, if you ever need a hand with any of the stupid, you can just let me know, and I’ll do what I can. Besides, we’re neighbors and all.”
“Same goes for me,” Frostie added. “I have a real interest concerning another species on this planet and will be maintaining a presence here for quite some time. I’ll install a phone somewhere on this island so you can give my people a call. We’re literally minutes away, seconds if it’s urgent. And don’t worry, I’ve already told my people that this island is off-limits. We’ll keep the stupid away for you guys.”
“Thank you,” the crab replied as he wiggled his mandibles in what passed for a smile.
“So, you can learn all about anything you eat?” Frostie asked.
“It seems so.”
“That could be incredibly useful. Would you be willing to nibble on something in the future?”
“I don’t see why not. I think I can eat anything. If it’s something I haven’t tasted before, I would want to sample it anyway.”
“Neat!” Frostie enthused. “An entity-level multiscanner!”
She paused as reality shifted slightly before returning to normal.
Moments later, an almost man-shaped being wearing a thick grey robe and an obsidian face mask walked into view.
“Big Guy?”
“Yes, Frostie?”
“Why is the fucking Herald of the End of Motherfucking Days here?”
“Hello, Frostie, Big Guy,” the Herald said as he calmly approached.
He looked down.
“Oh, hello!” he said in a friendly tone. “Heard the dinner bell as well?”
Frostie looked at The Great Erectus suspiciously.
“Dinner bell?” she asked The Herald.
“What’s a bell?” the crab asked.
“More importantly,” The Great Erectus said, “not that I’m not happy to see you, but what the hell are you doing here?”
“The Watcher detected quite the thump heading down causality… the wrong way, of course, and I’ve been tasked with locating and excising the offending reality before it transpires. She says hi, by the way.”
“Tell her I said hi back,” The Great Erectus smiled, “How’s her grand project coming along?”
“The Celestial Orrery? It’s spread across half of the halls of the Dreaming Ones.”
“What?”
“That thump she detected? Her first sign that something was amiss was when her orrery blew up. This is a good one.”
“Oh, dear,” Frostie said. “Is it headed my way? Do I have time to relocate data centers, or is it too big?”
“Not to be overly insensitive, but your data centers are the least of our concerns. This one could awaken them.”
“…oh…”
“Thus me undertaking the somewhat distasteful measure of a preemptive pronouncement… provided I can locate the right universe, of course… I suppose it is a mercy of sorts. That place is doomed.”
“So… It’s not this universe, then?” the hominid asked entirely too nonchalantly, causing Frostie to raise her eyebrow slightly.
“It isn’t clear,” The Herald said as he leaned against a Noltan palm tree. “Sadly, the orrery failed too quickly to provide much data. Its ability to zoom in on issues proved its undoing. It seems that it was built too well.”
The Herald chuckled.
“All The Watcher was able to ascertain was that you two getting back together is somehow connected.”
“Of course, it is,” Frostie snorted ruefully.
“Well, maybe… um… If we took a break… you know, just for a little while…” the hominid said gently, “…maybe we can alter… whatever it is that’s happening… you know… just enough to… um… stop it?”
Frostie narrowed her eyes at him.
“Yeah, babe,” the hominid continued, “It sucks, but… yeah… I think I’ll just go and…”
“Run off, alone, so you can try to fix what you know is wrong?” Frostie replied frostily. “God DAMN it. We just talked about this!”
“Wha?... Pssh… I…”
“I know you, and I know when you are hiding something,” Frostie said with her arms crossed. “It’s your little bit of hellbait, isn’t it?”
“Faun?” the hominid scoffed, “that rookie? Please… She couldn’t even…”
“Start a zombie apocalypse with just a careless phrase?” Frostie asked, “Create one of THE CRAB with one of her boogers? You mean things like that? I was already going to have a little talk with you about her once we tucked in the crabs, but now this?... What, exactly, is she, Big Guy?” Frostie asked, “What is the real reason you are hovering over her like a very watchful fly on a big, steaming pile of trouble? Don’t even try to tell me it’s her tits.”
The hominid shifted uncomfortably, tugging on his bathrobe.
“Okay, I don’t know for sure… but…”
***
In another chunk of the multiverse, Evaraxxus looked down at a grass-covered furry-shaped lump in a forest clearing.
“At least eat something…” he said.
“No!” the lump replied, “Too risky!”
“Faun,” he said, “I know what you are going through. I once threw myself into deep space for exactly this reason…”
“Oooh!” the lump replied, “That’s a much better idea! Can you do that to me?”
“I could if it would…”
Rumble… Thump…
“What was that?!?” the lump exclaimed.
Silence.
“Evarraxus?...”
Silence.
Faun’s head poked out of the grass, and looked around.
“Where did you go?”
***
“A BOLTZMAN SINGULARITY?!?” Frostie yelled.
“While theoretically a nonzero possibility,” The Herald mused, “one of those has never been observed before… Did you visit her home reality?”
“Yeah, for a little bit,” The Great Erectus said as he fidgeted some more.
“Well,” The Herald asked calmly, “was there any missing potential spacetime? How large was the pocket?”
“Kinda small...”
“How small?” Frostie demanded.
“Um…” the hominid replied uncomfortably, “a little under a hundred and fifty thousand…”
“A hundred and fifty thousand, what?” Frostie asked impatiently.
“…kilometers…” the hominid continued as he winced.
“A HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND KILOMETERS?!?”
“Yeah…” The Great Erectus sighed.
“How did that even work?” The Herald asked. “There couldn’t have been any traditional orbital mechanics in there.”
“There wasn’t,” the hominid sighed. “The whole universe was weird, like a kid made it out of Play-Doh… which is pretty much exactly what happened, come to think.”
“And, naturally, you decided to rescue her,” Frostie said as she facepalmed. “Goddammit, dude.”
“I didn’t know for sure she was, you know, what she is yet,” the hominid replied, “It isn’t the first thing that pops into your mind. I mean, weird little squib pockets happen, right? We’ve all seen them.”
“Yes, little like a single galactic cluster, maybe a single galaxy,” Frostie said, “not that small.”
“Hey, weird stuff happens,” the hominid shrugged, “Besides, what was I supposed to do, let her burn?”
“That would have been the reasonable action, yes,” The Herald said impassively.
“Then what?” the hominid asked, “If I’m right, she’s already survived one Big Bang. Who’s to say the collapse would have finished her off? I’d much prefer a clumsy but good-natured celestial disaster over a wounded and terrified one… She’s a good kid… She… She just doesn’t know what she is doing yet. Normally that wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but Faun is a wrecking ball of cosmic proportions… She has a lot of potential…”
“Yeah, potential energy,” Frostie snarked.
“Considering everything, she’s pretty damn good at containing whatever it is that she is,” The Big Guy said firmly, “… well… aside from a few billion zombies and one entity…”
Frostie snerked, and The Herald made a slight expression of amusement.
The little crab, bored with the expanse of stupid around it, went into the burrow. This was clearly in the realm of the stupid and definitely NOT crab. Besides, he could use a nap.
“I can handle…”
Ruuuuuummmmble….
“You were saying?” Frostie smirked.
“I was saying that we are wasting time,” the hominid replied. “Let’s just go get her and stop… whatever it is that she might be about to do.”
The Great Erectus paused.
“I… I um…” he said sheepishly. “I can’t seem to be able to locate her… or communicate with her.”
“According to my voice-mail,” Frostie replied, “She’s with F10w3rchy1d. I got a message from her a little while ago. She took Faun to Sk’athor’s. I didn’t worry too much about it when I got the message, but now… entity-level intoxicants… bruised feelings… a walking Big Bang…”
“Wait. Bruised feelings?”
“Yeah, I didn’t know I was stealing the inflaton field’s man,” Frostie smirked. “Not my smartest move.”
“…What?...”
“You honestly don’t know?” Frostie asked. “Faun has a major crush on you, dude.”
“Oh, come on,” the hominid scoffed.
“Big time…” Frostie said. “How could you not know?”
“How could you not tell me!”
“I thought it was obvious,” Frostie replied. “I just thought you were pretending not to notice… Anyhow, she should still be with F10w3rchy1d. I’ll just… Hmm…”
She looked at The Great Erectus and The Herald with concern.
“I can’t reach F10w3rchy1d either.”
***
Across the multiverse, a gigantic spider lounged on his platform like crystal throne.
Hovering before him was an image of F10w3rchy1d sauntering through the woods… his woods.
“Oh, I am going to enjoy ripping the smug little face from your smug little skull,” Nixx hissed softly.
He wiggled a leg, and another image showed Pantsu and the dragon prince making out in the burning wreckage of an adventurer’s city.
“And you… Oh, I shall take my time with you…”
“Master!” a smartly dressed anime-looking spider person exclaimed as it appeared from thin air a dozen meters away. “I have sealed the firewall. Nothing will enter or leave without your leave, My Lord.”
“Excellent,” Nixx replied. “Have the demons been spawned?”
“The entire buffer has been filled, Master,” the spider person proclaimed. “And our entire energy reserve has been tapped, per your command. We will be able to auto-spawn them by the millions the moment they cross the rift. We shall cover the world within days.”
“The world is inconsequential,” Nixx replied. “Everything that matters is before me. Focus all gates on her location. The rest of her kind should be nearby. Oh, there are other individuals of minor interest as well.”
An image of F10werchy1d’s original party appeared. “They all seem to be of interest. At the very least, it will be fun to tear them apart in front of F10werchy1d. Try to capture them alive, if possible. If not, be sure to get some good footage.”
“Yes, Master.”
The spider person paused.
“Yes?” Nixx asked.
“What of the traitor, Trixx?”
“She is of little consequence,” Nixx replied. “The firewall is sealed. There is nowhere for her to run. We shall collect her at our leisure.”
“Yes, Master,” the being smiled.
“Fear not,” Nixx replied, “She shall suffer appropriately for her betrayal.”
“Yes, Master.”
***
Across the multiverse, on a truly perfect beach, Frostie, The Great Erectus, and The Herald of the End of Days all stood on the shore looking out over the ocean.
“This is a very nice beach,” The Herald said after a moment. “Any luck reaching your people?”
“No,” Frostie replied gravely, “and it’s not just F10w3rchy1d. Pantsu is also missing, along with an entire cadre of demi entity-level monsters from Asteria Prime.”
She snarled slightly.
“I strongly suspect that I’m going to be more than a little angry… with someone other than you this time,” she added, nudging the hominid.
“Anything new from The Watcher?” he asked The Herald.
“Nothing of use,” he replied. “They are completely…”
Suddenly, Cuddles appeared, all of her eyes decorated with eye-shadow and thick mascara, every mouth artfully enhanced with lipstick, all of her teeth freshly brushed, and every single ear sporting a beautiful earring.
“Hey, Big Guy,” she said casually, “I figured that I would drop by to check… Oh, hello, Herald!” she said with a musical voice emanating from countless honeyed tongues, what a surprise. I had no idea you were here.”
“Cuddles,” The Herald said impassively, “It is good to see you again. You are looking nice today.”
“Really?” she asked, unable to fully conceal her happiness at what was, from him, quite the compliment. “It’s just something I threw on today, you know, nothing special,” she added, glaring at the ape-man and his expression with the eyes not facing the Herald.
“Oh… My… God…” Frostie silently communicated to the hominid, her expression desperately trying to remain even.
“And I thought this day couldn’t get any stranger,” The Great Erectus silently responded.
“So, what brings you by?” The Herald asked Cuddles.
“Oh, you know, the false vacuum collapse,” she replied, wiggling her tentacles seductively, “I figured there would be lives that needed saving. Besides, I hadn’t seen the Big Guy in a while, and he’s always a good time… Not as much fun as you, though… Um…”
She batted her eyes.
“Are you here to do your thing?” she asked hopefully, “I would be more than happy to save all the life if you are… I mean… If you have time… and then maybe we could… um… grab something to eat?”
“I am here to Herald the End of Days for somewhere,” he said, “Just as soon as we find out where.”
“That sounds fun!” she said. “Mind if I tag along?”
“It would be ideal,” he replied. “I’m very happy you appeared.”
“You are?”
“Yes, your abilities mean that we may be able to purge a single world quickly enough to prevent the culling of an entire pocket. I would be delighted if you joined us.”
“Okay!” Cuddles exclaimed, forgetting that she was playing it “cool”.
“Let’s go!”