“Acknowledged, my Host.”
That’s when I felt the change, and there was no other way to describe it than a fundamental change in… everything. My body expanded, slowly at first, but it increased in speed exponentially as if a chain reaction was taking place within me. Yet that increase in mass had to come from somewhere. Every pore of my body seemed to suck in the air and molecules in my surroundings, and soon, a tempest of swirling air started to form around me. People scrambled to escape the torrential gale, but it was futile.
If there was any consolation for the poor individuals attending this conference, it was that my transformation only sucked in air and smaller debris. A small consolation, as it was hardly a benefit when the winds grew in such extremes that it started to pick up sizable objects and eject them at breakneck speeds. There weren’t a lot of survivors when the walls finally collapsed under the insane air pressures building up inside, and the rest of the building went with it when my form grew larger than the stadium itself.
And as I was growing and expanding, I could start to perceive things that I never thought possible before. I heard and saw everything in the vicinity in crystalline clarity, I heard in frequencies and saw in wavelengths so far outside the human’s abilities that it left me all but stunned, and still my mind expanded. My very sense of self seemed to lose meaning as external information threatened to overwhelm me until that familiar calming voice eased my mind.
“Slowly, my Host, my Creator,” Noe whispered, “I am here with you, now and forever. Focus on my voice, on my being. Do not allow your mind to wander into things that you are not quite ready to face. I am here for you, dear Walter.”
And then she began to sing.
A melody as old as time itself, and I felt my mind lull into a familiar state of calm. I ignored the warping in realities and the cacophony of stimuli to just listen to that beautiful voice, immersing myself in it wholly. The screams and chaos seemed to disappear, the sensory overload of dust and air and blood faded into the background, and all that was left was the serene form of the singing Angel.
“It is done, my Host,” she said, ending her song, “I will always assist you, never forget that. Your transformation time might be narrow, but you need to take some time to compose yourself.”
I wanted to nod my head in thanks but realized that I didn’t have a head anymore. I was… well, I think the first thing that anyone noticed was that I was massive, first and foremost. Even though my transformation was just a pale imitation of a Xollon’s true Prime form, I was already the size of a small country. My body, which was nothing more than trillions of wiggling and pulsating masses, loomed well above the cloud cover. My six main feelers were measured in kilometers, and each movement of those limbs caused localized earthquakes and hurricanes to form.
However, despite the destruction of the city around me, the humans, at least those foolish enough to gaze at my being even if it was through video, could do nothing but kneel and stare at the being in the sky. All semblance of self was erased from their minds as something alien and eldrich invaded their very souls. That was the entire point of streaming this event over the internet; humanity was tenacious, and it wouldn’t be long before people realized that staring at the giant otherworldly abomination in the sky would be a bad idea.
I wasn’t sure what would happen once I took up the Prime form, but I at least wanted to ensure that as many people saw the scene as possible. I could still perfectly see every individual organism on the tiny ball they called Earth. Not just the humans, but the insects, the microbes, and if I concentrated, I could even see individual molecules that made up each of these fragile creatures. That’s when I noticed something else, and I laughed, causing horrible shockwaves of force to erupt forth.
It was at that point that I realized that I didn’t need Noe’s help to escape from this dimension. If I wanted to, I could break out of this damned prison with just my own abilities; the Trash Matrix hadn’t mastered Noe’s creation abilities, and I could already see the flaws in its design. But what was more, when I peered down the seams of this fake dimension and into the Greater Chaos, I saw that Central’s system was experimenting with a multitude of dimensions. There were thousands upon thousands of worlds, all with different intelligent life - the homeworlds of the various Aspirant species if I hazard a guess - each one living on as if Central had never intervened. If I took the time to just peer into its designs a bit more, I could perhaps understand what Origin was trying to achieve… just a little more…
“Stop, my Host,” Noe’s voice cut off, “It is dangerous to continue this course of action, at least for now. It is enough to know what the Trash Matrix is doing, we do not need to risk detection to find out the why.”
I wanted to explore this perception more, desperately so, but I knew that Noe was correct. Reluctantly, I turned my gaze back to this narrow strip of reality.
Time Limit: 9:01/10:00
I had nine minutes before I shrunk down to a manageable size, and I needed to use that time well. I could technically escape now, but that’s not what I would do. Noe deserved her revenge, and after seeing what the Trash Matrix was doing, I had an even better idea of how to fuck up its day. Originally, I wanted to just destroy the Earth or the like, to create as much absolute chaos as possible, but I had a better idea now. I might not know why the Trash Matrix was recreating all of these dimensions, but there’s no way that it’s doing it without a good reason. Plus, it was a task that the Matrix was willing to hide its experiments, so it must be important.
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I glared down at the millions of fake humans and instinctively understood what to do. Xollons were ultimately telepathic creatures in nature, something that I had a rough, rudimentary understanding of before, but now that I had touched the surface of what it meant to be one of their race, I knew what that truly meant. The fact that Xollon’s talked at all was simply a byproduct of their race's culture after assimilating into the wider Multiverse and not because they thought that speech was the fastest method of communication.
So what I did next was simple. I sent out a single message to every human whose minds were linked with mine, a simple one at first. I told them to spread my Truth to as many of their neighbors as possible in the next five minutes, to force them to look upon my form, for I had a task that I needed the humans of this world to perform. I had a mission for them, and although I couldn’t manipulate their bodies like Big Bob or Q could, I didn’t need to because they’d be accomplishing a task that didn’t require superhuman abilities.
The humans used what remaining time they had to gather weapons of all kinds, from knives, and crowbars, to the more conventional firearms, all of them more than ready to take on anything. While I waited for the thralls to work, I moved across the globe to spread my influence further. There were a few thousand dimensions I needed to screw with, so let’s not skim on the number of minions I brought.
Time Limit: 4:00/10:00
Five minutes wasn’t a lot of time, and a large portion of the world was not under my command, it would have to do. Noe might have said that she could hide my activities for a lot longer, but I don’t think anything she could do would obfuscate what I’m going to do next. I gave the humans one final command, one final directive, one that they will stop at nothing to accomplish, before forcing open a gateway into each of the thousands of false dimensions that the Trash Matrix made. I noticed the System’s consciousness gathered at my position almost immediately, but it was already too late.
I made one final adjustment to the brainwashed human’s perceptions before sending my minions marching en masse through those portals. I watched with glee as they swarmed into the shimmering wormhole like a tide of ravenous insects, and as they did so, the Trash Matrix gathered its energy in an attempt to fight off my intrusions. But now that Noe no longer had to use Charges to keep us hidden, she could use all 1557 Luck Charges to delay the Trash Matrix’s advances, and she was more than glad to spite the opposition. We laughed together as we felt its frustrations from being unable to do a thing, even as the Charges plummeted rapidly. It knew as well as we did that it wouldn’t be able to act in time.
I flipped off the Trash Matrix as I watched the humans rushing forth. I closed each portal in turn, once roughly enough people were through, but not before urging my brainwashed masses to destroy everything in their paths. It wasn’t until I was about to close the last dozen or so wormholes that I noticed something strange on the other side of one of the fake dimensions. On the other side of one of them was the aura of someone oddly familiar, like a remnant of an old memory from when I was awake. It took me a moment to realize what it was, along with a flood of old memories.
“Holy shit, the Trash Matrix got to Stanton as well,” I laughed, “And that old fart said he’d never fall into any traps! Shit, I can’t wait to see his face when I rescue him.”
I sent a smaller tendril of my main body over to the dimension where he was, and before I grabbed the body, I couldn’t help but laugh again. Stanton, the cantankerous old man with a full beard and a horribly balding head, was in the body of a child. He didn’t look older than maybe 6 or 7 years old, younger than even Alice or Toby, and if it wasn’t for the defiant look in his eyes, I would have almost second-guessed my initial thought, but he allowed me to pick his tiny body up in a tendril without fuss.
I don’t think he recognized me when I placed his tiny form on my back, and judging by the fact that his brain hadn’t turned to mush upon seeing my form up close, I knew that he still retained his sense of identity. I uh, probably should have checked to see if that were the case before scooping him up, but no harm done!
“Bloody hell, about time someone found me!” Stanton cursed, his voice used to be gruff, but it sounded oddly adorable now, which sent tremors in my body as I inwardly chuckled, “Shit! Stop laughing at me, ya damn Xollon. I look like a damned child, I know, but until I get out of this shit hole I also have the body of a kid, so unless you want me to fall off and die, you best stay still!”
Right, I used some smaller feelers to latch onto his body like a makeshift seatbelt and did my best to ensure he didn’t accidentally die from moving too much.
“Better,” he muttered, “Now if you’re about done, please get us out of here.”
Time Limit: 0:57/10:00
And I agreed with him. A little less than a single minute left, that wasn’t a lot of time to act. I pushed the old man - er, young kid now I guess - closer to my body and wrapped him up in a layer of tentacles. If his body was as fragile as he told me, he’d need the added protection. Once I was sure that he was nice and secure, I closed the last of the portals that led to the other fake dimensions and forced my way out of this prison Earth, and I wasn’t all too subtle with it this time.
The dimension ruptured and ripped as my primary feelers forced their way through the thick space around us, and I yanked my lumbering form back into the Prime dimension. I had originally wanted to go get my friends first, but it wasn’t like I could go back to Xalla, Molly, and Q without destroying the already fractured plane, so I dropped the two of us off near that desolate rock of a world where the four of us first entered.
“Ah, fuck!” I heard Stanton say once we were fully out, “Finally!”
He forced my tentacles aside and hopped out of the cocoon that I made for him, standing neatly on my head. Without much time left, I rushed to the surface of the half-cooked world and turned back into my secondary form. The transition was disorientating, but at least Noe was able to make the transformation somewhat bearable.
“Thank you, my young Xollon friend,” Stanton said, offering a hand to shake, “Which organization hired you to come find me? Hiring one of you must have cost a damned fortune, and it seems I owe someone a favor.”
Ah, it seems he didn’t make the connection between my identity and this current appearance. Huh, I think I can use that to my advantage, at least for now.